


danger will follow me everywhere I go

by Shadowcrawler, unwindmyself



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dollhouse Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Murder, Neurology & Neuroscience, questionable business practices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2018-11-12 09:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11159046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcrawler/pseuds/Shadowcrawler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: In the near-future, science has progressed to allow manipulation of the human brain to be rewritten repeatedly.(a Dollhouse AU)This time: There's a pharmaceutical mishap at a nearby university, and the Dollhouse steps in to help.





	1. and this is the time, the time to change my life

**Author's Note:**

> _Dollhouse,_ and by extension this story, is centered around an organization called the Rossum Corporation that makes a business of removing certain elements of the human personality in order to make room for other elements to be added as needed. Basically, they take people (usually volunteers) and return their brains to a "blank slate" stage so that they can be programmed with new personalities as customers request. It is not exclusively sex work, but in many cases in the series proper, clients request "romantic" scenarios that involve sex or sexual situations. If you're not familiar with _Dollhouse,_ do be aware that certain elements of this setup can stray into dubcon territory (not narratively endorsed) and feel free to backbutton if that's going to be an issue for you. (We did completely remove Sierra's sexual assault subplot from our season 1 outline.) 
> 
> Many characters are partial analogues for _Dollhouse_ characters, but not totally. If you're familiar with both, you may recognize these elements.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The LA Dollhouse gets a new Doll, and Charlie is sent out on a couple of different assignments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie (Joelle, Aurora): Daisy  
> Foxtrot (Erika): Kara  
> India: Raina  
> Tango (Sara): Bobbi  
> Mike: Lincoln  
> Romeo: Trip  
> Delta (Cammie): Akela

Joelle’s pretty sure if she dances any more tonight, her feet are gonna fall off. She’s also pretty sure she doesn’t care. She went out with the goal of having fun, and she’s spent the most amazing night with this guy she’s never met before…

“You sure you don’t need to sit down?” he asks, grinning at her. Miles. He’s got a goatee and a cute smile. Earlier they had a crazy motorcycle race, and earlier than _that_ …

“I’m fine!” she shouts to be heard over the music. “I’m having a blast!”

“Me too!” he says. “Are you sure you have to go at one?”

Dammit, she almost forgot about that. “Sorry,” she shrugs. “I keep to a pretty strict schedule. You are _definitely_ gonna get my number though. I wanna do this again ASAP.”

“Cool,” he says, but then he looks sad for a second. Before she can ask about it, he twirls her around and says, “I’m gonna get another drink, you want anything?”

“Sure!” She pulls out her phone once he’s stepped away. She still has about fifteen minutes before she has to meet her ride, and she is _not_ gonna waste a single minute of that time.

One drink and fourteen minutes later, she pulls Miles close for one last kiss. “Sorry to leave you hanging,” she says. “But call me, okay?”

“Yeah, I will,” he says, and then he looks sad again momentarily before smiling. “Thanks for this. I had fun.”

“Me too! You were just what I needed.” She kisses him on the cheek before turning to leave.

Right on schedule, the van’s outside waiting for her. And Mack is there, his smile warm and welcoming as always. “Have fun?” he asks.

“I sure did!” she says, skipping a little before climbing into the van. “I met this guy, Miles, and _wow_ , he was incredible. I have so many stories to tell you on the way back!”

“Can’t wait to hear them,” says Mack with a chuckle.

 

* * *

 

“And there we are,” says Fitz, miming dusting his hands off as Charlie opens her eyes and the chair sits her back up. “Active state restored.”

Callie glances at the monitor and then back to Fitz with a smile. “Good as new,” she agrees, and then she asks Charlie, “How are you feeling?”

“Did I fall asleep?” Charlie asks, blinking and smiling blankly.

“For a little while,” says Fitz quickly, stepping forward so Charlie will focus on him.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.” Once Charlie’s walked elegantly out of the room, Fitz turns to Callie and sighs. “You know you’re supposed to let me do the script. You’re just there to smile politely at them and basically act as backup.”

“She looked at me,” Callie says, holding her hands up defensively. “It would have been weirder just to stand there and wait for you to chime in.”

“But she _wouldn’t_ if you didn’t talk to her,” grumbles Fitz. “Anyway, that’s all settled. Go and make sure the new girl’s ready to start the uploading, will you?”

“She looked at me because I talked to you,” she points out, but she nods. “How soon are you going to be ready to get her started?”

“Within the next fifteen minutes, preferably. It’ll take at least two hours and we have Delta due back from her last engagement at four, so we’ll need to have the chair ready for that.” He makes an impatient waving motion with his hand. “Go on, shoo.”

Callie rolls her eyes, but nothing about this surprises her. She heads for the intake room, where the new girl - dark-haired and wide-eyed, maybe South Asian; Foxtrot, it’s going to be - is waiting, guarded by more than a few suits. That’s sort of unusual; there are always chaperones, but rarely a whole entourage. “Are we ready to go?” she asks, trying for patient and as inoffensive as possible lest she disturb some part of Fitz’s process inadvertently.

“No,” the new girl exclaims, trying to struggle away. Well, that explains the suits. “No, I’m not - I don’t _belong_ here, I -”

“You’re going to be fine,” Callie says, as soothingly as possible. “Just follow me, Fitz is waiting for you.” She doesn’t bother trying to explain further. She still hasn’t mastered the art of explaining things to Dolls, even though this one isn’t there quite yet.

The suits manage to urge the new girl up, corral her into following after Callie, and Callie smiles a tight smile at Fitz once they’re in the imprint room. She’s wondering if maybe she should tell him this one seems difficult, but he’s read the file, he should know whatever there is to know (she has not, and therefore does not, but knowing is not her job so much as nannying, unfortunately).

“Hi there,” Fitz says, smiling as best he can at the girl (it’s not a smile that would reassure most people). “It’s time for your treatment. Please come here and sit down in this chair.”

She yelps, clearly in distress, but the suits get her positioned as smoothly as they can. “What are you doing?” she asks, voice nearly a whisper.

“I’m just going to run some tests on you,” Fitz says, trying for soothing. “It won’t hurt and it won’t take long. It’ll help you get ready for your life here.”

This doesn’t seem to do much to calm her, but after she sweeps her gaze around the room (all exits blocked) she seems to deflate some and she nods. It’s not acceptance so much as resignation.

“Thank you,” Fitz says. He nods toward the chair. “Go on, sit down.”

The girl sighs, accidentally catching Callie’s eye as she takes a seat; Callie pastes on a smile but doesn’t say anything, feeling somehow pointed in her obeisance.

Fitz goes to the computer and makes the last few adjustments as needed. Just after he’s begun the imprinting process, he hears someone say, “She’s sad.”

He whirls aroun to see Charlie standing in the doorway. “Charlie!” he yelps. “What are you doing up here? You’re not supposed to be in this room!”

“I’m not in the room,” Charlie says, blinking. “I’m in the doorway.” She points at the chair. “Why is she sad?”

“She’s having a treatment,” Fitz replies quickly. “She’s not going to be sad for long. And soon, you’ll have a new friend! Won’t that be nice.” He drums his fingers nervously on the desktop and glances at Callie. “Will you take her out of here, please?”

Callie stifles a groan, moving toward Charlie to steer her away despite Charlie’s apparent reticence, but she doesn’t even bother to hide her relief when they run into Dr. Simmons on the staircase down into the main area of the house. “Shouldn’t she be with you?” Callie asks, sounding tense.

Dr. Simmons smiles - her smile is placid, patient, clearly cultivated to deal with Dolls - and says, “I was actually just coming to look for her. You need to have your exam after your engagement, Charlie.” She manages to make it sound scolding, but in the most playful way possible.

Charlie smiles at Dr. Simmons. “I’m sorry, I was exploring.”

“Exploring?” Dr. Simmons asks, seeming amused but not patronizing. (Callie’s impressed by how generally unpatronizing Dr. Simmons is, especially compared to some people.) “What were you exploring?”

“I went up the stairs,” Charlie says, “and I heard noises. I came to see what they were.”

Dr. Simmons glances up at the imprint room - lights flashing, enough figures crowded around, must still be doing Foxtrot’s intake - and reaches out to touch Charlie’s arm. “Let’s go get you looked over, alright?” she suggests. “I think we should stay out of the way up there for now.”

“Okay,” Charlie says, but she looks back at the girl in the chair. “Will she be happy soon? She’s sad right now.”

“She will,” Dr. Simmons agrees, but there’s a note of something just a little unreadable in her voice. “You’ll be able to meet her soon, don’t worry.” She guides Charlie down the stairs and into her office, leaving Callie to return to the imprint room, and frowns. “You’re favoring your left leg, Charlie. Do you feel alright?”

“It hurts a little bit,” Charlie says. “Maybe something fell on me.”

“Maybe,” Dr. Simmons says. “Why don’t you come in and sit on the table, and I’ll take a look at that. I’m sure we can get you right as rain in no time.”

“Is rain right?” Charlie asks as she gets onto the table. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well,” Dr. Simmons says, clearly backtracking to explain the euphemism she hadn’t thought before employing in the presence of a Doll, since they aren’t really great at understanding euphemisms, “if we didn’t have rain, nothing outside would ever grow, and that… that wouldn’t be right at all! Sometimes rain is inconvenient, but yes, in its way rain is right.” She turns away to gather some supplies, feeling slightly flustered like she usually does when she goes off babbling (even if the Dolls aren’t going to think about it one way or the other, she’s used enough to other people giving her a certain _look_ that she dislikes).

Charlie smiles. “I like listening to you talk. You have a pretty voice.”

And then _that_ happens, and it’s not like Dolls don’t throw compliments around fairly regularly, but it still catches Dr. Simmons off-guard and she’s probably still blushing a little when she heads back toward the table and starts to sit it up so Charlie can lean back. “Thank you, Charlie,” she murmurs. “I guess it is different than everyone else’s voices here, so that… would be noticeable. Anyway, can you lift your leg up for me?”

Charlie nods and does so. “You’re nice,” she says. “I like coming to see you.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Dr. Simmons repeats. “I’m going to roll your pants up a bit so I can see your knee, alright?”

“Okay.” Charlie smiles. “You take good care of us.”

“That’s very important to me,” Dr. Simmons says, baring Charlie’s lower leg. “Bend your knee, alright?”

Charlie does, and then asks, “Does someone take good care of you, Dr. Simmons?”

The question is - well, it’s more insightful than most things that come out of a Doll’s mouth, so in that way it takes Dr. Simmons by surprise. “I suppose in a way,” she murmurs. “Mr. Coulson is a very kind supervisor, and - and May keeps us all safe, and of course Fitz and I are friends…”

“That’s good,” says Charlie, sounding satisfied. “Everyone should have someone to take care of them.”

“They should,” Dr. Simmons agrees. “Your knee feels very tight, right here. Does it hurt more when I touch it here?”

Charlie winces. “Yes.”

“It’s not broken,” Dr. Simmons muses, “but it does seem like you pulled muscles. I’m going to order you a massage, alright? And in the meantime…” She goes over to her small refrigerator and takes out an ice pack, which she then wraps in a towel. “Can you make sure to hold this against your knee until you have your massage? It’s going to be cold, but it should help you feel better.”

“Okay, Dr. Simmons.” Charlie takes the ice pack and smiles. “Thank you. You help me be my best.”

“I try, at any rate,” Dr. Simmons says. “Let me get that massage set up for you.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m really not sure we should have admitted her yet,” mutters Melinda.

Phil shrugs. “She’s clearly troubled. Hopefully being a Doll will help bring her some peace.”

Melinda snorts and replies, “Peace, sure. You saw her, she was a mess.”

“Exactly, and Fitz can help. He can, you know, erase whatever made her like that, get rid of whatever trauma from her past. It’s helpful.”

Melinda’s about to say something else when Fitz comes into the room, followed by Isabelle. “All done,” he says. “Foxtrot is ready to go.”

“We sent her out on the floor with the other Actives,” adds Isabelle. “She’ll be fine.”

“Will she?” Melinda asks, raising an eyebrow.

Isabelle shrugs. “I’ll do my best, anyway.”

“I know you will,” says Melinda, sounding a bit kinder. “You’re one of the best handlers we have.”

Isabelle tosses her head. “You said it, not me.”

 

* * *

 

“I enjoy painting,” India says, dipping her brush in red paint and starting to sketch out the shape of a flower.

“It’s relaxing,” Tango agrees, though her own canvas is still blank. She’s staring curiously at the exercise area, where a dark-haired woman wearing shades of purple is running on the treadmill, being watched by some attendants with clipboards. After a moment she asks “What are they doing? Are they helping her?”

India glances up for a moment and her ebony curls bounce. “She’s new,” she remarks.

“I saw her earlier,” Charlie says. “She was sad. But Dr. Simmons said she’d be happy soon.”

“Are you sure?” India asks.

“She isn’t sad now,” Tango says. “She’s running very fast.” Her eyes still haven’t left the woman, and idly her paintbrush taps against the little table.

“I like running,” says Mike. “Running helps me be my best.”

“Dr. Simmons said we would meet her soon,” Charlie says. “I think that will make her happy. It’s nice to have friends.”

“Making new friends is nice,” agrees Romeo.

“Can I have the yellow paint?” Mike asks.

Delta hands it to him. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Mike starts painting what looks like a yellow mouse.

“Mice aren’t yellow,” India says after regarding him for a minute.

“My mouse is yellow,” says Mike. “It’s just pretend.”

“Pretending is fun,” says Romeo.

For a little while, the Dolls all work on their paintings in companionable silence. Their art teacher wanders between them, nodding and humming encouragement, and they reply politely like always. It’s simple, peaceful, thoroughly uneventful.

And then the woman from the treadmill comes over.

“Foxtrot,” one of the attendants says to her, “I’d like you to meet some of your new friends. This is Mike.”

Mike has light beige skin and dark blond hair, and he’s wearing an orange t-shirt. He seems like he’s concentrating on what he’s doing.

“This is India.”

India has light brown skin and curly black hair, and she’s wearing a green t-shirt. She looks like she has a secret.

“This is Delta.”

Delta has dark brown skin and short black hair, and she’s wearing a gray tank top. She seems quiet.

“This is Romeo.”

Romeo has dark brown skin and no hair at all, and he’s wearing a light blue t-shirt. His eyes are smiling, even though his mouth isn’t right now.

“This is Charlie.”

Charlie has medium-brown skin, closest in tone to Foxtrot’s own, and brown hair, and she’s wearing a dark blue tank top. She seems familiar.

“And this is Tango.”

Tango has beige skin, but a little darker than Mike’s, and long curly hair the color of honey, and she’s wearing a white t-shirt. She’s looking at Foxtrot very seriously.

“Hello,” Foxtrot says after a moment, smiling, when she realizes it’s her turn to speak.

“Everyone, this is Foxtrot,” the attendant says, earning a chorus of hellos in reply.

“I’m going to go shower,” Foxtrot announces. “I’m very warm from running.”

“I’ll come with you,” Tango says, setting her paintbrush down and standing up. “The showers are very nice. The water is cool.” Ergo, of course, it should be helpful if Foxtrot is warm. She doesn’t think she needs to explain that.

“That sounds nice,” Foxtrot agrees, her smile growing. “Will you show me where the showers are? I don’t know yet.”

“Follow me,” Tango instructs, starting in that direction.

“Showers are nice,” Mike says. “But not as nice as swimming.”

 

* * *

 

“C’mon,” coaxes Elena, grinning as she tugs Mack in the direction of the handler lounge. “It’s the middle of the day, who else could possibly be in there?”

“Some of the other handlers?” Mack asks, but he’s grinning too.

“Come now,” Elena replies, “we’ve both been so busy with work the last couple of weeks, I have barely seen you! Let’s just take a few moments for us, okay?”

“Alright, alright.” Mack ambles along behind her.

When they get there, the door is shut - which they quickly realize was for a reason when they walk in on Victoria and Isabelle in the middle of a not-entirely-innocent makeout session themselves.

“Surprise,” Victoria drawls once she catches sight of them.

Elena laughs. “Oh. I see we are not the only ones who had this idea.”

“Nope,” says Isabelle with a lazy grin. She’s still wearing her shirt, but it’s unbuttoned and askew. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Mack says, laughing a little nervously. “We can just go somewhere else.”

Elena shrugs. “Or we could just sit far away from each other and pretend the others aren’t there.”

“How very middle school dance of us,” Victoria remarks, her head resting against Isabelle’s.

But before they can go about this, Hunter barges in and flops down on the other couch, groaning. “I don’t see how it’s fair to make them practically walk around in underwear,” he whines. “Where we can _see!_ ”

“I don’t see what their clothing has to do with anything,” says Elena, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose you mean the Dolls? You would not be allowed to have sex with them either way.”

“Also, the rest of us aren’t suffering because of it,” Victoria points out.

“Well, no,” grumbles Hunter. “You’ve all got people to help you with that. I haven’t got anybody.”

“Because you’re constantly whining about that,” chimes in Melinda, who’s just coming in.

Hunter makes an indignant noise. “Not _constantly._ ”

Mack, Melinda, Isabelle, Elena, and Victoria all look at each other and then nod.

“You’re ganging up on me,” Hunter complains.

“ _Anyway,_ ” Melinda says, rolling her eyes. “I’m glad you’re all here. Phil’s asked me to go over the month’s numbers with the handlers ASAP.”

“How exciting,” sighs Elena, looking disappointed.

 

* * *

 

“So basically, you’d like some arm candy who can spy on your business rival for you?” Phil asks, smiling politely at the client. “If I’m understanding you correctly.”

“I don’t care for the term ‘arm candy,’” the client says, raising an eyebrow in the most prim way possible (especially considering where he is and what he’s doing). “But basically, yes. Corporate espionage isn’t unheard of, and we fear that our company’s party tonight is going to draw out spies working for our rivals. It’s a countermeasure, really. We could hire from the same sorts of organizations our rivals have likely done, but then we run the risk of creating conflicts of interest, not to mention of there being spies-for-hire who go home for the night with our secrets in their minds.” He clears his throat. “This is much less of a liability.”

“Makes sense.” Phil nods. “And you’ll be needing three Dolls, is that correct?”

“At minimum,” the client says. “We can discuss variables when I go enter my parameters, or however you do this, but there are two executives and myself seeking women to pose as our dates while getting the job done.” He smiles, thinly. “And after all, a beautiful woman can be all too disarming.”

Phil chuckles, replying, “Of course. Well, I think that will be suitable. This is, of course, not a romantic engagement and you’ll need to pay extra for any sexual pleasure you or your executives wish to engage in while our Actives are on this engagement. They are not sex workers; please ensure your executives understand this.”

“Oh, I doubt that will be a problem,” the client murmurs conspiratorially, smirking. “Another advantage of beautiful women is that their presence can dispel certain… rumors, but rest assured, none of us have any interest in seducing our beards.”

“Oh, I see.” Phil smiles, amused. “Excellent. Would you like to set up the parameters and take a look at our House Actives now?”

“Please,” the client agrees, nodding politely.

 

* * *

 

“...so she’s basically arm candy, but arm candy who’ll also be spying,” Fitz says cheerfully.

Mack grimaces. “Not a big fan of this one, I’ll admit.”

Fitz tsks at him. “Mack, Mack, Mack, you know as well as I do that neither you nor I get to choose the engagements. We just get our marching orders and follow them to a T.”

“I just worry about her,” Mack sighs. “I don’t want any of those guests getting the wrong idea just because she’s flirting with them for information.”

“It’s sweet of you to worry,” coos Fitz, “but she’s a big girl. Well, sort of. I can program her with self-defense moves, if it’ll make you feel better. That’s not hard to add on.”

“I guess if that’s all you can do...sure.” Mack shakes his head. “At least this one isn’t romantic.”

“Not jealous, are you?”

“What? God, no! I’m not Hunter.” That makes Mack smile for a second before he adds, serious again, “I’m just not sure that what we’re doing is actually helping people. I dunno.”

“Does it matter?” asks Fitz with a shrug. “Our job isn’t to judge, Mack. Nobody would be here if they didn’t want to be.”

Mack shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s that simple, but whatever you say.”

 

* * *

 

“So you like, design computers and stuff?” Aurora twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “That is _so_ cool!”

“And stuff,” says the partygoer, amused but clearly also charmed. “Some days it’s kind of boring, but we do what we can.”

“So like, what’s your favorite thing that you’ve _ever_ designed?”

“That’s not a hard question to answer or anything,” he quips. “Can I take a second to think about it? There’s a lot to sort through.”

‘“Totally.” Aurora beams at him. “I just like, think it’s _so_ cool. I could never do all that stuff with computers, I can barely figure out my phone, y’know?”

“Aw, it’s not for everyone,” he says, sounding like he’s actually attempting to be consoling. “I’m sure you’re good at… other things.”

“Yeah?” She bats her eyelashes. “I dunno.”

“Well, you’re good at being beautiful,” he murmurs.

Giggling, Aurora taps him playfully on the arm. “Oh, shut _up!_ You’re just saying that!”

“I’m not,” he insists. “And you’re charming, too.”

“Gosh,” she hums. “You’re really nice...Steven.”

He blinks. “Well, it’s not the weirdest thing a pretty girl has ever called me, I guess.”

“Oh, sorry, I’m not great with names.” She flashes him a smile. “My bad.”

“Hey, if you want me to be Steven…”

Aurora giggles again. “I mean, Steven’s a nice name. But like, I should probably know your real name.”

“Chad, actually,” he chuckles, reaching out to brush a hand down her arm.

“Oh, right. I’ll try to remember.” She copies his touch by running her hand down his arm too, and then says, “Hey, I’m like, really thirsty, do you think you could go get me a drink?”

“Want me to guess what you’re drinking or are you gonna give me a hint?”

“Surprise me?” Aurora winks at him. “I bet you’re really good at guessing what a girl likes.”

Saluting, Chad heads off in the direction of the refreshments table and Aurora sneaks off to a nearby corner and murmurs, “Hey, I made contact with that Chad guy. Holy shit, he’s stupid. Totally fell for the valley girl thing.”

“Good work,” says Mack over the comms. “Be sure you get him to talk about his work.”

“Yeah, I know.” Aurora rolls her eyes. “He’s being super weird and cagey about it, but I’ll do my best.” She glances around. “Cammie’s talking to Kevan right now, and I can’t see Sara but - oh shit, he’s coming back, brb.”

She makes her way back over to where she’d been standing just in time to seem like she’s been there all along. “Thank you!” she says, beaming at Chad when he hands her a glass.

“Champagne, milady?” he asks with a faux-courteous bow.

“Mmm, good choice.” She takes a sip. “So, I asked you a question earlier and you never answered it, mister.”

“Ask me one more time,” he says casually.

“Oh, I just wondered what your favorite thing you’ve ever designed was,” she replies. “I mean, I don’t know a lot, you can dumb it down.”

“Well,” he says, dragging it out like he’s still thinking about it, “I guess I’m pretty proud of my ice wall. Y’know, ‘cause it’s the opposite of a firewall.” He seems pleased with the joke, although the metaphor doesn’t actually play out that well because while the two things are opposite fire would pretty well actually destroy ice.

Aurora giggles. “What’s that mean? I like, _really_ don’t know anything, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Chad laughs. “So firewalls are the things that you install to keep bad shit out of your computer, basically. Except it’s not always used for just bad shit, sometimes it keeps shit that should be getting in…” A meaningful pause here, because he’s double-talking a little; Aurora knows that he’s talking about shit that is, in fact, bad. “And so the ice wall, ha-ha, freezes the controls. Lets shit get in after all.”

“Oh, I get it,” says Aurora, nodding. “So like, should I get one of these when it comes out?”

“As of now, it’s only available to private companies,” he says. He means his own company and those that contract with it.

“Aw.” Aurora pouts exaggeratedly. “Well if it’s so important, how come only companies get to have it?”

“Still working out a few details,” he shrugs.  “It operates on a level that’s sort of beyond what laypeople can do, anyway.”

“So are you the only person that knows about it? Is it like, top-secret?”

“I’m one of a select few.”

“Wow. So you’re pretty important then, huh?” Aurora twines her arm with his for a second.

“I guess you could say that,” he remarks, clearly smug.

“Have you ever thought about like, selling it by yourself? I mean, you could probably make a lot of money if it’s _so_ special and important.” Aurora fluffs up her hair idly.

“Maybe,” Chad says, “but I’m not so much a businessman. Besides, I’ve got a good thing going right now. No need to play with it.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, be nice,” Sara is chuckling, tossing her hair. “I’m spoken for, lest you forget.”

“I can’t compliment a beautiful woman?” Dirk replies. “Even the most _taken_ babe likes being called a babe.” He pauses and steers her away from the crowd at large, toward the hallway almost. “Besides, you’re not all that taken. I saw whose arm you walked in on.”

Sara raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she murmurs.

“Everyone knows that those guys are f-”

By now, they’re alone enough that they won’t get noticed, which means Sara has no qualms about twisting his arm behind his back and shoving him up against the wall, smiling all the way. “Watch it,” she hisses.

“Ooh, feisty, I could get on board with that,” Dirk says, though he’s wincing.

“If you want to be able to get on board with anyone, ever, I suggest you end your earlier statement with ‘-ucking phenomenal businessmen,” she chirps, twisting a little harder.

“F-ucking phenomenal businessmen,” he chokes out. “Jesus, lady, what the hell?”

“Consider me the voice of your conscience,” she cracks, and then she storms off toward the ladies’. When she’s there, she says into her mic, “Sorry. Had to diffuse that situation.”

“No need to apologize, darlin’,” says Hunter. “But I guess we won’t be getting any intel out of him, then.”

“He’s a wash,” Sara says. “All he knows is who’s getting busy when. Decent blackmail information, but that’s not the target.”

“Dammit. Well, keep trying, love, you’re doing great.” Hunter switches off his mic and sighs. “I hate this.”

“What’s the matter, Hunter?” teases Elena, smirking.

Hunter gives her a withering look and doesn’t answer.

“Elena?” Cammie asks. “You there?”

“Yes, go ahead,” says Elena quickly.

“I made out with Kevan and swiped a zip drive out of his pocket,” says Cammie, sounding smug. “Threw in a decoy, so he won’t figure it out for awhile.”

Elena grins. “Well done. Did he tell you anything?”

“A little. I’ll tell you more when I get back to the van. He offered to introduce me to a couple of his friends, so I’d better tap out for now.”

“Good luck,” says Elena, and then leans back in her chair and puts her feet up. “Pretty good, eh?” she asks Mack, looking mischievous.

Mack snorts. “It’s not a competition, you know.”

“I know, but my Active’s still doing better than either of yours.”

“Must be a difference in the programming,” Hunter complains.

“No. Delta’s just the best,” says Elena with a little shrug.

“Oh now, those are fighting words,” replies Mack, grinning. “Whose Active is most requested again?”

“For _now_ ,” says Elena. “We’re coming for your title, you know.”

Hunter groans and puts his head in his hands. “Will you _please_ quit flirting on the job? It’s bloody obnoxious.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, I’ve never been opposed to a little… experimentation,” murmurs Sara, stepping closer to Aurora and brushing her hair behind her ear. “Especially with such a pretty… variable.”

Aurora does her bubbly fake giggle. “I don’t know if I know what that means, but I think I’m flattered.”

“It means we’ve got _chemistry_ ,” Sara whispers. She’s fully aware of the eyes on them: their alleged dates, who seem mostly amused, and their targets, who appear enthralled. They’re in a room cut off from a lot of the party, but the important people are present.

“Oh, right.” Aurora slips her arm around Sara’s back. “I’m definitely feeling some of that, yeah. What d’you think we should do about it?”

“I have a few ideas,” Sara says. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Cammie rummaging in their opponents’ things, casually, like she’s supposed to be there, but they’re still on distraction duty, just in case. And hey, she doesn’t mind playing around a little, Aurora’s pretty hot. She closes the distance between them and starts tracing fingers along Aurora’s shoulderblades. “Starting with this,” she adds, leaning in to kiss Aurora on the mouth.

Aurora hums into Sara’s mouth, pulling her closer. “I like your ideas,” she murmurs against Sara’s lips.

“Mm, good,” Sara hums. She strokes across Aurora’s skin, deepens the kiss. “Yum.”

Aurora adds some tongue, groaning when Sara bites at her lip. “Feels like you’ve done this before.”

“That a problem?” Sara breathes out. “You don’t _seem_ like you’re complaining.”

Shaking her head fiercely, Aurora moves to suck a hickey onto Sara’s neck. “Not at all,” she purrs. “I love it when people have more... _experience_ than me.”

“You make it sound so formal,” Sara chuckles, tilting her head to allow more access.

Unfortunately, it’s right then that someone calls out, “Hey, you! What are you doing?” at Cammie, whose hand is blatantly in the pocket of someone’s abandoned jacket.

She blinks. “I, ah…”

Just then, a new person comes storming into the room, gun drawn. “I don’t think you want to ask any more questions,” she says, tossing her hair.

Sara glances up and smirks. “Glad you could make it to the party, Erika,” she drawls.

“I’m only here to cover your asses,” Erika replies, smug as anything. “Sounds like the show needs a little work, if your audience’s attention is wandering like this.”

“What the hell is going on?” Kevan exclaims.

“What’s going on is you’re gonna forget you ever saw us, and we’re gonna do the same,” Erika says, motioning for the other girls to get behind her.

“Thanks for the free champagne and stuff!” chirps Aurora. “See you...well, never.”

 

* * *

 

“How did Foxtrot handle her first engagement?” Dr. Simmons - Jemma, here with him she’s just Jemma - asks, casually leaning against the desk in Fitz’s office.

‘Pretty well, I think.” Fitz shrugs. “It was basically just a last-resort rescue op, but I didn’t hear about any issues. She was fine, for the backup.”

“There weren’t any signs of… I know the girl had some fairly severe mental conditions, coming in, and going out on an engagement so soon after arriving…”

“Like I said, it wasn’t a particularly stressful engagement,” says Fitz idly. “I don’t even think she was really working for more than five minutes. You’d know if there were any lingering adverse effects more than me.”

“I suppose,” Jemma says, sounding a bit doubtful. “Considering the nature of the engagement, everyone came out pretty well unscathed, I think.”

“Yes, always good when everyone’s in one piece,” Fitz says with a smile. “I think Foxtrot’ll be fine. I told them to keep her off of romantic engagements for a few weeks, just to be sure, but after that I’m sure she’ll be popular.”

“They all are, in one way or another,” Jemma remarks, “but that - yes, that’s a good idea. Easing her into it.” She smiles back, cautious and almost shy as she says, “Good thinking.”

Fitz puffs up just a bit, clearly pleased, and says, “I thought so, yes. Everyone come back with a clean bill of health?”

“Mostly,” Jemma says wryly. “Tango is sporting quite a love bite, which might be interesting, but everyone’s alright, medically.”

“Oh, is _that_ what that was.” Fitz rolls his eyes. “I thought they weren’t supposed to be able to do things like that.”

“Within the parameters of engagement personas, I suppose anything is possible,” Jemma says, shrugging. “You’re the one who designed their personalities, you must have given one of the others that kind of… friskiness.”

Snorting, Fitz replies, “It wasn’t intentional, I’ll tell you that much.”

“I suppose there’s no telling, sometimes,” Jemma sighs, sounding a bit doubtful. “At least it’s a fair bet it was one of the other Dolls, and not some schmuck at the party. Right?”

“Small blessings, yes. Perhaps I’d better keep a close eye on those four, see if they start exhibiting grouping tendencies while in Doll-state. It’d be better to nip that in the bud if possible.” Fitz pauses and adds, “Did I tell you that Charlie walked in on Foxtrot’s imprinting process?”

Jemma shakes her head. “I heard from Callie and Charlie herself that she’d been, quote, ‘exploring,’ while it was still going on, but I hadn’t realized she actually…”

“Oh yes. Waltzed _right_ into the room and asked a bunch of irritating questions.”

“She doesn’t mean to be irritating,” Jemma says, almost chiding him. “Don’t be mean.”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “I know, but it _was_ irritating. Anyway, I hope that didn’t affect either of them too much. Hopefully she forgot about it by now.”

“Forgetting is rather what they do,” Jemma says softly.


	2. with every step that you take (call up the romance police)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie Reyes tries to settle a personal score and finds himself unexpectedly tangled in the Dollhouse's endeavors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robbie essentially fills some of the Paul Ballard role in the story, i.e. outsider who stumbles onto the Dollhouse, but also he is very much the opposite of Paul Ballard because we love Robbie and Paul Ballard sucks.
> 
> Charlie (Stella, Andrea): Daisy  
> Tango (Larissa): Bobbi  
> Romeo (Adam): Trip  
> Delta: Akela  
> Foxtrot: Kara  
> India (Emily): Raina

“Where are you going?” Gabe asks teasingly, glancing at his brother. It’s clear from his tone that any answer is going to be worthy of joking in one way or another.

“Nowhere important,” Robbie grunts. “I’ll be back before midnight.”

“You’re lying,” Gabe says, wheeling his chair around to get a better look at Robbie. “You never go anywhere, which means wherever you’re going is important. I’m not a dumb kid, you can tell me.”

“I’m going to a bar,” replies Robbie. “To meet girls.”

“Really,” Gabe deadpans. “Any particular girls? Or just randoms?”

Robbie shrugs. “Blonde in a Union Jack? A specific one, I didn’t just wake up with a craving.” Then he chuckles and adds, “Gonna see who I meet tonight. Should be fun.” He shoots Gabe an almost-convincing smile.

“Yeah, okay,” Gabe says warily. “Just wasn’t expecting that. Ever. But you go have a good time.” He manages a much better smile. “You deserve a fun night out.”

“Thanks. I’ll have my phone. Let me know if you need anything.”

Of course, Robbie’s not at all planning on looking for girls. He has inside information that the biker gang meets frequently at this bar, and he’s going to be there to watch them. Not that he’ll do anything about it tonight - he’s still in the observation stage of things.

He wears a leather duster and all-black clothing. (Honestly, it’s not that different from his usual outfit.) The bikers usually show up around ten or eleven, so he gets there a little earlier and nurses a beer waiting.

He doesn’t really have a solid plan here - but he can’t let them get away with what they did. It’s been nearly a year since the accident, but he hasn’t been able to let it go. Robbie had been driving, Gabe in the passenger seat, and they’d been smacked into by a car with the gang’s insignia plastered on it. Before Robbie could do anything, the gang’s car sped off, the sound of laughter ringing in Robbie’s ears. Gabe’s adjusted to needing his wheelchair, but Robbie can’t think about it without getting angrier and angrier. He needs to make them pay for hurting his brother.

As they start to trickle in, laughing amongst themselves, he watches. They seem so carefree, so unaware of the pain they’ve caused. _Monsters._ He’ll find a way to make them understand.

A couple of them have women on their arms, who laugh and talk along with the others. This baffles him, until he realizes these women are possibly not affiliated with the gang and have been...well, hired. There’s an air about them that the bikers don’t have, like they’re doing their best to fit in but not quite succeeding.

One of them, a tall blonde, saunters over to the bar, very near where Robbie is sitting, and tries to get the bartender’s attention. This doesn’t work, which means the woman sighs dramatically and says, directly to Robbie, “Guess I picked the one night being a hot chick _doesn’t_ get you instant service.”

Robbie blinks. He’s never been good at talking to women. Or anyone. “That’s too bad,” he says shyly, sipping at his beer.

“You seem like you got the bartender’s attention,” she remarks, nodding to his beer. “Care to help a girl out? I’m Larissa.”

“Robbie,” he says, waving for the bartender. He does have to keep doing it for a minute or so, but luckily the guy spots him before too much longer and heads their way. “What brings you here?” he asks, trying for innocent.

“Oh, out with a guy,” Larissa shrugs. She glances back toward her group’s table, where several men seem to have devolved into drunken arm wrestling. “It’s going… okay.”

Robbie makes what he hopes is a sympathetic face. “Your date doesn’t seem all that interested in you.”

“It’s kinda normal, honestly,” she says. “They’re getting their rowdies out.”

“Still,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Doesn’t seem like you’re having much fun.”

“Worse ways to spend a night,” Larissa declares. “What about you? What’s your game tonight?”

Robbie shrugs. “Drinks. Conversation. I’ll see what happens.”

“Sounds kinda vague,” she teases.

“I don’t mean to be,” he says with a grin. “So how’d you meet that guy anyway? The one you’re here with.”

“Friend of a friend,” she remarks. “In a way.”

“Well, it seems like your friend has pretty bad taste in people,” he jokes. “I haven’t seen that guy look twice at you since you got here.”

“He’ll get more attentive later, I have a feeling,” she replies archly.

“Hopefully.” Robbie gives her a smile. “You deserve that.”

“Someone’s sweeter than they look,” Larissa murmurs playfully.

Robbie chuckles. “Haven’t heard that much before.”

“What’s going on here?” growls one of the bikers, coming over to put his arm around Larissa’s shoulders.

“He just helped me get the bartender’s attention, that’s all,” Larissa says, a note of warning cheer in her voice. There’s no need to get territorial. “Figured I wasn’t gonna bother you while you were busy.”

“Hmm,” murmurs the guy, stroking down her back. “Well, thanks for the help, man.” He doesn’t say anything more, as if he’s hoping Robbie will take the hint and move along.

Larissa gives a little wave. “Have a good night,” she says brightly, nudging her date as if to imply they should be the ones to migrate, not Robbie; after all, he was there first. It’s only fair.

Her date scoffs, but reluctantly leads her away. Robbie rolls his eyes after him and takes a drink.

After a few minutes alone, another of the girls, Chinese with shoulder-length hair, comes over to the bar, looking bored. “Vodka tonic,” she says to the bartender. “And make it strong.”

“Doing okay?” Robbie asks, in what he hopes is a casual tone.

She shrugs. “Had better nights. It’s kind of a long story.”

“If you wanna tell it, I’d be happy to listen.” He grins. “I’m Robbie.”

“Stella.” She offers her hand. “Basically, my date, who wasn’t actually my date, ditched me for the girl he was trying to make jealous. So now I’m pretty much free for the evening.”

Robbie frowns. “He sounds like an asshole.”

Stella shrugs. “I’m technically working tonight, so whatever. Y’know.” She glances at him. “Like I said, he wasn’t actually my date, he just paid me to be here. Go ahead, say any of the gross shit you’re thinking. I’ve heard it before.”

“Oh. Gotcha.” Robbie shrugs. “Wasn’t thinking any gross shit.”

“Really? Well, that’s a surprise.” Stella grabs the glass the bartender passes her and takes a long drink. “Usually if I mention sex work, people morph into puritanical judgey bitches immediately. Or they sort of pussy-foot around it, use a lot of not-really-judgey phrases.”

Robbie laughs. “Nope, no judgment here. Sorry he ditched you though.”

“He was already an asshole, so I’m totally fine with not having to hang around him.” Stella grins. “So what’s your story, Robbie?”

“Not much to tell,” he says. “Just here hanging out. Also it gets my little brother off my back. He thinks I stay home too much.”

“Oh, brothers,” says Stella. “I’ve got two older ones and they have _no_ idea what I do for a living. One of them would try to go out and beat up all my clients and the other would lecture me on how I’m betraying feminism or some shit. Never mind that I’m making bank.”

Robbie snorts. “Yeah, Gabe’s six years younger but I think he thinks he’s _my_ big brother sometimes. Dumb kid fusses over me all the time.”

“Cute.” Stella smiles at him. “You must be close.”

“We’re all we’ve got,” says Robbie with a shrug. “Our folks aren’t around. We have an uncle, but he lives an hour away. And he was in a really bad car accident a year ago, so I gotta take care of him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is he doing okay?”

“He’s got a wheelchair. But he’s coping okay. Probably better than me.” Robbie smirks into his beer. “He thinks _I_ should be processing it with a therapist or something.”

“Hey, therapy’s great,” says Stella. “You sound like a great brother.”

“I try,” says Robbie, glancing back over to where the bikers are.

They chat for a few more minutes before someone calls Stella back over to the bikers. Surreptitiously, Robbie pulls out his phone and snaps some pictures of her face. Creepy? Maybe, but he has facial recognition software and damned if he isn’t going to use it.

 

* * *

 

“You’ve seen the news reports?” Melinda asks Phil, voice low.

Phil nods. “Can’t miss ‘em, they’re everywhere.”

“I don’t have to tell you what all the victims have in common.”

“Nope.” Phil sighs. “Maybe we should start adding a disclaimer. ‘Dollhouse clientele may find themselves in mortal danger.’” He grins, but it’s half-hearted, because two former patrons being the victims of gruesome murders in as many weeks isn’t a laughing matter.

Melinda gives him a look that tells him as much. “And they both had romantic engagements,” she points out. “That’s probably not a coincidence.”

“Hm,” says Phil. “You think it was some kind of weird morality police thing? Like maybe they found out these guys secretly hired Dolls and they wanted to make examples of them? Crazy Christian types, maybe?”

Scoffing, Melinda says, “You know _exactly_ who it was, Phil.”

Phil sighs. “I was hoping for some nice crazy Christian types. That’d be so much easier.”

There comes a knock at the office door and Victoria walks in, one eyebrow raised. “Am I interrupting something?” she asks suspiciously.

Phil coughs, in the most accidentally suspicious way possible. “No,” he says quickly. “We were just...talking numbers.”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “Did you need something, Vic?”

“I just wanted to talk over Romeo’s last engagement,” Victoria shrugs. “We haven’t had a chance to yet, and I know you do like that personal play-by-play, Phil.” She might be slightly sarcastic about this.

“Oh, of course, yes.” Phil glances at Melinda, still a little flustered. “We can pick this up later?”

Sighing, Melinda nods. “Sure. See you later, Phil.”

 

* * *

 

The first thing Robbie does in his search is google “stella” + “prostitute” + “los angeles.” That doesn’t get him much, so he pokes around in the local escort agencies to see if any of them list the Stella in question. He finds several Stellas, none of whose pictures match the girl he met at the bar. Frustrated, he expands his search to escort agencies all over California, and still comes up empty. Granted, it might be that whoever she’s working with isn’t online and is more of a the-people-you-know establishment, but one place she might not be able to hide is Google Images. Robbie uploads the pictures to his facial recognition software and goes to make a sandwich while it does its thing.

When he returns, it’s come up with results alright - but none of them link to a Stella, at all. There are about a dozen pictures of her, some from traffic cameras, some from social media accounts, some from other places. They all come up with different names: Joelle Danvers, Aurora, Chrissy Underhill...there doesn’t seem to be a single picture of the girl that uses the same name. “ _What_?” he asks, blinking at the screen.

The screen doesn’t answer, of course.

 

* * *

 

“So what the hell is going on, Phil?” Victoria asks, sitting on the overstuffed leather sofa and giving him a look. The fact that he’s technically her boss has never seemed to affect her.

Phil purses his lips, clearly flustered. “Er,” he says. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve watched the news recently.”

“Read the news,” she corrects, smirking. “It goes faster.”

“Ah, good point,” he says with a nervous smile. “Anyway, there’s been a couple of high-profile murders in the last couple of weeks, and as it turns out, they were both former clients. We’re, ah, looking into whether their murders may have been related. We think it might be someone who has a moral objection to the Dollhouse,” he adds, almost cheerful. “Both of the engagements were romantic.”

“I’m pretty sure if they had a moral objection they’d morally object to the part where we also rent them out as assassins sometimes,” Victoria remarks.

Phil colors slightly. “I suppose. But, yes, we were discussing whether we ought to be concerned for the safety of our clients and the Dolls, and whether anything can be done about it.”

“Catch the bastard?” she suggests wryly.

“Well, yes.” He laughs. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas about how to do that?”

“He’s targeting clients, or she, I suppose,” Victoria says. “They’re targeting clients. How recently after their last engagements were the victims attacked?”

“I don’t know off the top of my head,” says Phil with a shrug, “but I think probably within a month of the engagement? Pretty recent. I remember the last guy pretty well. He wanted Delta for a threesome with his wife.”

“So ideally, we’d trail all the clients who have romantic engagements and intercept any attacks,” she sighs. “Which logically isn’t practical. We don’t have the staff to supervise that many clients, even if we imprinted every Doll in the house to help. Were there any other connections between the victims?”

Phil thinks for a minute. “I guess they both had female Actives, but I don’t know if that has much to do with it. One had Delta, like I said, and the other had Tango.”

“So about as different as two Dolls could be,” Victoria declares. “The percentage of female Actives who have romantic engagements is slightly higher, so until we have more information I don’t want to rely on that to build the investigation… but then, you don’t really need me to build your investigation at all, do you? That’s what May’s for.”

“I suppose so,” says Phil, grinning. “Still, thank you for trying to talk me through it.”

She nods, though she’s slightly suspicious. “I’m guessing whatever you do you’re going to do soon,” she says. “Far as I know Romeo has a couple of days off…”

“Hm,” muses Phil. “How would you feel about using him for a special assignment?”

 

* * *

 

“You want to use Romeo as a covert tracker to catch this guy?” Melinda raises an eyebrow.

Phil shrugs defensively. “I’m not saying he needs to go after the guy himself, but it would help to have an extra pair of eyes in case things go south.”

“Uh huh,” says Melinda. “And what happens if this guy notices _him_?”

“He’s gonna be imprinted as special ops,” says Phil. “He’ll have done this before.”

“I guess,” Melinda says reluctantly. “So he’ll be tailing the guy while one of the female Actives is on a regular engagement?”

“Essentially. He’ll be our eyes - the person who’ll have the best idea what’s going on in the situation if someone does show up and causes trouble.” Phil pauses. “I feel like you’re not as on board with this as I am.”

Melinda sighs. “It’s too complicated. And we don’t know whether whoever this is will go after an Active if they feel threatened.”

“It’s not _that_ complicated. One Active, out like normal, and one keeping an eye on them and their client.” Phil shrugs. “Unless you have a better idea, it might be the best option.”

Melinda frowns and replies, “Not that I have a better idea, but this just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Understandable,” says Phil, “but nothing about this sits right with me, so.”

 

* * *

 

“This is so great,” gushes Andrea as she twists some pasta onto her fork. “I can’t believe you got reservations here! They’re usually booked for months in advance in the summer.”

Jacob shrugs self-effacingly. “I know how much you like this place,” he says. “It wasn’t too hard. Just pulled a few strings.”

“Best boyfriend _ever_ ,” Andrea squeals.

Meanwhile, Adam, stationed close enough to the restaurant to see everything, speaks into his comm. “Victoria? Everything seems normal so far.”

“Comforting,” Victoria drawls. “No news is good news, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Adam is quiet for a minute before he adds, “Not gonna lie, this guy doesn’t seem great. In my unprofessional opinion, she deserves better.”

“I’m not really the one to ask,” Victoria chuckles. “But our job is just to keep an eye on them and make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Adam laughs. “How’s your girl, by the way?”

Victoria blinks, glad that Romeo can’t see her face right now. Of _course_ Fitz programmed Adam with the knowledge that she and Isabelle are an item. It’s not like it’s particularly salacious or particularly secret, either way, but it’s also really none of his damn business; honestly, it’s just like him to pry without prying like that.

But that’s not Adam’s fault, and it’s not like there’s a good way to explain her annoyance to Adam considering it’s predicated on the fact that he’s not a real person and everything he knows was put in his head by a know-it-all Scottish asshole. So she clears her throat, tries to laugh, and says, “She’s good. Nothing special going on, just the same old… good.” And even if there _was_ something special, like hell would she share it.

“Glad to hear it.” Adam’s quiet for a little while, just humming to himself. “She got any cute friends you could introduce me to?”

“We really don’t have a lot of uncoupled friends,” Victoria says. Technically not untrue, considering they don’t have that many friends.

“Damn.” Adam sounds like he’s smiling. “Worth a try, anyway.”

He doesn’t say much as they both watch the date in progress. “Hey,” Adam says finally, “so...how in-depth is this surveillance? I mean, I’m willing to watch their dinner, but if things get sexy I’ll feel a little weird watching, y’know?”

“We just have to see them home safely,” she says, chuckling.

(She does actually survey the sexy bits in her job as a Handler, not always but sometimes, and she’s not sure that Fitz’s programming the question into the Adam persona isn’t a weird and slightly passive-aggressive… something, although what he has to be passive-aggressive about is unclear considering he’s just as complicit. She tries not to question it.)

“Cool.”

“Hey, guys.” Mack patches in. “Adam, do you see that guy a few tables away? Latino, short hair, leather jacket, cheekbones?”

“Yeah, I see him.”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he came in right after the happy couple and he’s been watching them ever since. Might be taking pictures too. It’s a little weird.”

 

* * *

 

Robbie’s not proud of what he had to do to get into this restaurant (it involves swiping someone’s wallet to get his ID, which he fully intends to mail to the guy later, he’s not a monster). But here he is, and there’s Stella, or Joelle, or whatever her name is. He heard the guy call her Andrea when he snuck past to “use the restroom” earlier. Maybe it’s some weird anonymity thing where she uses a different name with each guy?

Right now she’s laughing and talking with him like they’ve known each other for months. It’s a little weird, but not completely out there. If she really is a sex worker, maybe he’s a repeat client. Then again, he’s treating her more like his girlfriend than anything, so maybe they really _are_ dating.

He takes a few pictures with his phone, careful not to be seen, and leaves just before they do so he can be on his bike and waiting to follow them once they get outside. He tails their cab, careful to keep out of sight, and manages to stay hidden even when they get out at a fancy house in a neighborhood just outside the city. He turns his bike around and rides out of there.

But when he googles the guy, he turns out to be a high-level software developer who is either very modest about his incredibly hot girlfriend, or not actually Stella/Joelle/Andrea’s boyfriend after all. He has no pictures with her at all, and in fact he has pictures with another, blonde girl on his Instagram feed as recently as a month before. Robbie shakes his head, still no less confused than he was before.

 

* * *

 

“I enjoy swimming,” remarks Tango, easing out of the pool and reaching for a towel.

Delta climbs out and nods. “It’s very relaxing. May I have a towel as well?”

“Yes,” Tango says, handing a towel to Delta with a polite smile. “I swam thirty laps this afternoon.”

“That is a lot of laps,” replies Delta. “I’m sure that helped you be your best.”

“Yes,” Tango repeats. “I feel tired, but in a nice way.” She starts gently wringing water out of her hair and lets her gaze drift over the room, toward the door that leads to and from the showers. Foxtrot comes in and unwinds her own towel from around her waist.

“I think now I’ll go look at a book,” says Delta idly.

“Foxtrot is very pretty,” Tango murmurs, watching as her new friend sits at the edge of the pool and pushes herself in.

“Yes, she is,” says Delta, seeming a little puzzled. “What does that have to do with books?”

“Nothing,” Tango says. “I saw her walk in and wanted to say that. It’s nice to say nice things about your friends.”

“It is,” Delta agrees. “You should tell her that. It will make her happy.”

Tango grins. “I will! Thank you.” Apropos of nothing, then, and still toweling her hair dry, she sits down cross-legged at the edge of the pool and watches Foxtrot swim with an expectant but patient smile.

“Are you waiting for something?” Delta asks.

“I am going to wait for Foxtrot to finish swimming,” Tango explains solemnly. “I don’t want to forget to tell her that she’s pretty.”

Delta nods. “That makes sense. I will see you later, then. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” Tango replies, smiling.

Foxtrot swims thirty laps as well, pausing every ten to catch her breath, and Tango occupies herself by counting how long each lap takes her to swim. When Foxtrot climbs out of the pool, Tango stands up and goes over to her, smiling. “Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” Foxtrot says. “You weren’t swimming.”

“No, I swam earlier,” Tango says. “I was waiting for you to finish so I could tell you that you’re pretty.”

Foxtrot beams. “Thank you,” she replies. “You’re also pretty.”

“Thank you,” Tango echoes. “Would you like to go eat something? I’m usually hungry after I exercise.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Foxtrot agrees. “I am going to take a shower first.”

“I’ll take a shower too,” Tango decides. “Then we can eat!”

“Yes,” Foxtrot says. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” Tango says.

 

* * *

 

Fitz is idly glancing at the monitors as he does paperwork, more out of habit than actual concern for what’s going on. They try to have someone watching the pool at all times, just in case something happens and an Active needs rescuing. Today it seems pretty quiet. Delta and Tango swim at the same time, then both get out and talk as they dry off. He’s glad the monitors are visual only - Dollspeak is excruciating. Then Foxtrot enters and starts to swim, and after a minute Delta leaves, but Tango sits down, watching Foxtrot.

“Huh.” He puts down the paperwork to watch. That’s not normal. Actives take about as much notice of each other as well-trained dogs, which is to say that they seem to understand that the other Actives are similar to them, and they’re cordial, but they don’t typically form attachments or interact with other Actives for more than a few minutes.

Tango sits and watches Foxtrot swim until she gets out of the pool. Then they talk for a minute or two before leaving together. Fitz raises an eyebrow. “Odd.”

It’s unusual, and that makes him nervous. So he goes to get Jemma. “I noticed something odd on the security cameras in the pool area,” he says, rewinding the tape.

“Oh?” Jemma hums, tilting her head. “Odd concerning, odd silly, odd as in a technical malfunction?”

“Just watch.” He pushes play and lets her watch it up until the two Dolls leave. “See?”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        “Tango must be interested in making a friend,” Jemma says. That’s an understatement, in her opinion, but she doesn’t want to go presuming, especially considering she’d be presuming it about Dolls.

Fitz frowns. “Have you ever seen them look at each other like that? Or wait for another? I certainly haven’t.”

“I suppose it could be instinctual,” Jemma says hesitantly.

“What do you mean?”

Jemma glances at the monitor, then her hands - anywhere but his face as she muses, “Well, attraction. Besides, wasn’t Tango’s last romantic engagement, you know…?”

Furrowing his brow, Fitz says, “It was with a woman, yes, but I wiped her. She shouldn’t still have those...urges.”

“I suppose,” Jemma says, sounding doubtful. “But perhaps it’s deeper than conscious urges, perhaps they…” She trails off, pressing her hands to either side of her neck anxiously. Discussing the Dolls’ habits with Fitz is normal, she’s not sure why this is making her so uncomfortable. “It’s foolish. Forget it. Tango and Foxtrot see each other all the time. Tango was just… looking for longer than she usually does. That’s harmless, I think.”

“Uh huh,” says Fitz, sounding unconvinced. “So we shouldn’t worry about it, then? In your opinion.”

“I don’t think so, not yet anyway,” Jemma nods. “For all we know, Tango just… decided to sit down after she swam and didn’t think about getting up until Foxtrot did.” The excuse sounds flimsy even to her, but it’s not entirely improbable (probably). “Besides, it clearly wasn’t an antagonistic interaction. I think that would be a much bigger concern.”

“True.” Fitz nods. “And I suppose, I suppose girls do this sort of thing more often, don’t they? They’re more affectionate with friends and such. It doesn’t mean... _that._ ”

Jemma bites her lip. She doesn’t much care for how he sounds like he’s judging - because there’s no judgment here, that’s the whole point of the Dollhouse. But it’s not worth fighting about, and anyway he’s probably right, and… “Not usually, no,” she says. “I mean, I… well, I haven’t really _had_ friends like that, not girlfriends anyway, but I haven’t had many… oh, you know. That’s how it is in films, anyway.”

Fitz chuckles. “I don’t typically see those types of films, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“I haven’t seen many, either,” Jemma mumbles, flushing. “But the few… it’s not unusual, is my point. If you wanted to keep an eye on them, I suppose that wouldn’t go amiss, but I don’t know that you really have to.” She pauses, thinks for a moment, and adds, “Besides, didn’t Mike used to follow Charlie around sometimes? Still might, in fact. And that’s not… that’s harmless. That’s never been a concern.”

“I suppose,” agrees Fitz. “Anyhow, I guess I’ll keep an eye out for any other odd behavior.”

“I’ll do as well,” Jemma says hesitantly, more because she’s pretty sure he expects it of her than because she thinks it’s necessary. Implicit is the thought that her idea of odd might be different than his - but not too different, really. It couldn’t be.

“Anyhow,” Fitz adds, “I just wanted a second opinion.”

Jemma nods. “Well, you know I’m glad to help,” she says. “Was there… anything else?”

Fitz shakes his head. “That’ll be all, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Jemma says, starting (slowly) toward the door. The truth is, she doesn’t have any obligations until the night’s engagements start filtering back in, and she was feeling a little bit lonely before Fitz called her up. But she doesn’t want to say that, because that’s foolish and loneliness is nonsensical and she doesn’t want to seem at all needy. She just starts to walk out.

Slowly.

She gets almost to the door before he adds casually, “Would you like to help me do paperwork? I have juice boxes, you could have one.”

“Apple?” she asks, trying not to sound too excited. She’s a grown woman, juice boxes shouldn’t be this exciting.

He rummages in his fridge and holds it out to her. “You can sit over here,” he says, indicating the wooden stool next to his chair.

“I’m glad you’ve never given into that trend of sitting on oversized bouncy balls,” she chuckles, perching on the stool with her ankles crossed and starting to look the papers over.

 

* * *

 

“There’s a _who_ now?” Fitz asks.

“Mack noticed him while Romeo was on surveillance,” says Phil. “Here, he got a few pictures.” He passes the prints over to Fitz.

Fitz looks closely at them, pursing his lips. “And he was watching them all the way through, and then followed them?”

“On a motorcycle, yes,” confirms Phil. “We checked the reservations list that night, and he gave a false name, so that’s a dead end.”

“Can you run facial recognition on him?” asks Melinda.

Fitz scoffs. “ _Can_ I.” While still sitting in his rolly chair, he scoots over to the computer and scans the pictures into the system. Within a few minutes he has a handful of results. “Doesn’t seem to have his own social media accounts, but he shows up a lot on this one.” He clicks over to the tab open on an Instagram account, gabereyes97. The screen fills with pictures of a smiling Latino boy in a wheelchair, textbooks, nice cars, and a few of the guy they’re looking for, glaring or looking blankly at the screen. “Now,” Fitz adds, “it seems like this is probably his kid brother, and Gabe here refers to his brother Robbie several times, so it’s likely our spy’s name is Robbie Reyes.” He looks smug. “You’re welcome.”

Phil looks impressed; Melinda less so. “Anything else you dug up?” Melinda asks.

“Well, there’s a few pictures coming up that, funnily enough, have some other familiar faces in them.” He clicks around to show them pictures from the bar where Tango and Charlie last had a joint engagement. “Seems like he made some friends.”

“Hm.” Phil tilts his head, as if thinking. “So what should we do about this?”

Fitz shrugs. “Is it too much to assassinate him? He seems like something of a threat, considering he may be tailing Charlie.”

“No one is getting assassinated,” says Melinda quickly. “But we should keep an eye on him.”

“Maybe we can loan out one of the Actives to do that,” muses Phil. “Program her as a non-threatening neighbor or something, and place her in his vicinity for a few weeks or months.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Fitz says, “but we’ll need to be sure it’s one that he has had _no_ chance of coming in contact with. He’s probably catching on to Charlie, who knows what else he suspects.”

“So not Charlie,” Phil says. “And not Tango. I’d like to keep Foxtrot to short-term engagements since she’s still new.”

“What about India?” Melinda asks. “She hasn’t been on any romantic engagements, or anything in the public eye, in awhile.”

“That could work.” Phil nods slowly. “Can you create that imprint?” he asks Fitz.

“I can do that,” Fitz agrees. “So we basically want to make her appeal to him as much as possible so he’ll talk to her.”

“Well, don’t go overboard,” Phil says. “But you could leave it open to romance, yes.”

“Give me a day or two and I can whip something up.”

 

* * *

 

“Here we are,” says Fitz, waving the wedge triumphantly. “Where’s India?”

“Right here,” announces Quinn, her Handler, as he ushers her into the imprint room. He’s one of the showier Handlers, which means he doesn’t get on with Fitz very well, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

“Hello,” India says with a placid smile.

“Hello,” Fitz says, a tad impatiently. “Will you get in the chair, please, India? It’s time for your treatment.”

“You’re not your best,” she murmurs, in a way that sounds as much like pity as anything a Doll says can, but she settles herself in the chair obligingly.

He raises an eyebrow but decides to ignore it, beginning the imprinting process. Once it’s over, the chair sits India back up and she smiles at him. “Hi, Emily,” he says. “Did you enjoy your treatment?”

“I did,” promises India-as-Emily, grinning. “It’s been a really long week, it was nice to just relax.”

“I’m sure,” Fitz replies with a patronizing smile. “Mr. Quinn will take you home now, if you’d like.”

“Let me just get dressed,” Emily says.

\---

Emily doesn’t consider herself a barfly or anything, but occasionally it’s nice to go out just to do something around other people, or whatever. Tonight she winds up in some fancy little bar that’s playing Formula One racing, which she doesn’t know much about, but not so loudly that it’s annoying; she’s thinking maybe she’ll just have a drink and read a book, and this seems like a relaxed enough place to do that, so she’s content.

Unfortunately, it’s a small enough bar that they’re low on tables, so she winds up kind of awkwardly hovering around one where only one guy is sitting by himself. “Uh… can I?”

Robbie looks up, a bit startled. “Sure,” he says, smiling nervously. “I’m not here with anybody.”

“Oh, god, I don’t mean like I was coming onto you,” Emily laughs. “Just, busy night. Needed a seat. Not that you’re not cute, but - scratch that. Ignore that I even said it.”

“Do I have to?” He grins. “People don’t say that to me a lot.”

She blinks and sits down fully before responding. “I mean, if you don’t wanna ignore it you don’t have to,” she says, sounding a little sheepish. “I just didn’t wanna be weird. Er. Weirder.”

“Nah, you’re okay.” He laughs and takes a sip of his drink. “I’m not that social.”

“Me either,” Emily confides. “I’m not _anti_ -social, I guess, but I’m not usually chatting up strangers.”

“Nothing wrong with that if that’s what you like,” says Robbie. “I don’t.”

“Yeah,” she nods. “It’s not my favorite, usually. Thanks for taking it so well.”

He shrugs. “You seem okay. My brother wants me to date more, but I have enough trouble getting to that point.”

“Well, you can’t force it, right?” she asks.

“True.” Robbie shrugs again. “I’m Robbie, by the way.”

“Emily,” she says. “Nice to meet you.” She nods over to the flat-screen television. “Do you follow this stuff?”

“Not really, no. It’s background noise to me.”

Emily nods. “Yeah, same here,” she agrees. “I’m honestly awful at any kind of organized sport stuff.”

“Same here. Was always hopeless at gym class. I mean, I was hopeless at a lot of school, my brother’s the smart one, but especially gym.”

“Gym class is brutal,” she says, nodding fervently. “It always just seemed kind of sadistic to me.”

“Yeah. I liked shop class,” he replies. “I like cars. I’ve got a ‘69 Charger, if you know anything about that. Love that car.”

“I know less than I want to, usually,” she smirks, “but old cars are really pretty. Is that stupid to say?”

“No, not at all.” Robbie pulls out his phone. “See, this is Lucy.” He scrolls through some pictures of the car. “I did a lot of work on her myself.”

“Oh, _nice_ ,” Emily coos, eyes widening in appreciation. “She’s gorgeous.”

Robbie grins. “Thanks. I know it’s kinda weird to name cars, but it just seemed right.”

“Nah, it doesn’t seem that weird to me,” she shrugs. “People name fancy boats, right?”

“Good point.” He pauses for a drink before asking, “So, what brings you here?”

“It’s silly,” she demurs, sipping her own drink.

“I’d like to hear it.”

“Sometimes I have to force myself to go out,” she admits. “Not necessarily to do anything, but to… not be in my apartment watching Netflix.”

“Oh, I get that.” Robbie laughs awkwardly. “Gabe, my brother, he basically shoved me out the door tonight. You’re not the only one.”

Emily runs a hand through her hair, visibly relieved. “Hey, and this is more of a going out activity than usual. I was kind of just planning on reading or something.”

“Well, hey, glad to help.” Smiling, Robbie adds, “I’m not...great with people, so thanks for putting up with me.”

“You’re good,” she promises. “This is good. It’s... easy is a silly word for it, but it’s the only one I’m coming up with.”

“Good. I mean, that’s good. I’m glad.”

“Me too,” she says.

They continue to talk and lose track of time, until eventually the bar is closing and they’re both jolted out of their reverie by a slightly irritated bouncer trying to clear the room. “Huh,” Robbie says, walking outside with her. “Haven’t spent that long talking to someone in...well, ever.”

“Yeah, me either,” Emily murmurs, suddenly a little sheepish. “Sorry if I rambled or anything.”

“No, it was nice.” Robbie coughs. “Um, if this isn’t weird, could I maybe get your number?”

“Not weird,” she promises, grinning as she reaches for her phone. “It would kinda be weirder if you didn’t ask, at this point.”

“Cool.” He smirks. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight.”

“Yeah, same to you,” she says. “I should probably get going, but…” She lets her smile soften as she leans in to kiss his cheek, then breaks away with a little wave.

If anyone were around to look at him, he would strongly deny that he stared after her with a dopey look on his face.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Fitz says, “that seemed to go quite well.”

“Quinn says India was perfect,” agrees Phil. “It even went longer than intended. I guess they really hit it off.” He smiles. “I’d say it’s romantic, but, well.”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “So, what, we just periodically send her to meet him?”

“Apparently,” says Fitz. “If nothing else, she might be able to gather basic intel about where he goes and what he does.”

“I suppose,” Melinda says. “It’s better than having no eyes on him.”

“Anyway,” Phil says, “we’d better be going, we have a meeting coming up. Great work, Fitz.”

Fitz heads back to his office and calls, “Jemma? You around?”

“Luckily,” Jemma replies, chuckling. “Do you have any snacks? I think I’ve reached that time of the night.” She looks sort of embarrassed about this, for no real reason.

“Of course.” He rummages about before handing her a bag of chips and a juice box. “I just wanted to talk to you about India’s latest mission.”

“Yes?” she prompts, sitting and very gently ripping the bag open. “Spying on the purported spy, wasn’t it?”

Fitz nods. “It was basically just sending her out to meet him at the bar and then letting them talk for a bit. Not that complicated. But I’m not really sure what it’s leading up to. They won’t tell me anything, really.”

“You sound like you suspect something, though,” she muses.

Shrugging, he says, “It’s not quite that I _suspect_ something, but I think it’s awfully strange they’re focusing on this one guy when there’s a murderer on the loose.”

“And we know for sure he’s not the murderer himself?”

“No,” admits Fitz. “He very well could be. But he should be one of dozens of suspects, not the only one we’re supposed to follow.”

“Maybe they just haven’t figure others out yet?” Jemma suggests, though she knows it sounds flimsy. “I’m sure they’ve got their reasons and all.”

Fitz frowns. “Maybe, but it all seems very odd to me.”

“It’s not the most usual thing I’ve ever heard, but then, we don’t exactly have a usual job in general,” she quips, trying to make light.

He snorts and replies, “True enough.” He’s about to say more, but there’s movement in the corner of his eye and he whirls to see Charlie standing in the doorway, smiling.

“Hello,” she says.

“Charlie!” yelps Fitz, a bit taken aback. “Are you, are you here for your treatment already?”

“It’s important to be on time.”says Charlie.

“That’s true,” Jemma agrees, though she’s not sure how much else to say lest she interrupt something.

“Well, we were in the middle of a conversation,” says Fitz, “so perhaps you could wait down the hall?”

“What were you talking about?” asks Charlie, tone bland as always.

Fitz glances at Jemma, who pastes on a smile and says, “Just work things.”

“Oh.” Charlie tilts her head. “Then why do I have to go away?”

“We’re, ah,” Jemma stammers. “They’re complicated. I don’t think you’d like thinking about them.” That feels a bit condescending, but it’s not entirely untrue, either.

“Oh. Okay.” Charlie turns around and walks out.

Once she’s gone, Fitz rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to be that nice to them, honestly,” he says. “They won’t remember.”

“I’m not sure what else to do,” Jemma replies, sounding defensive. “There’s no point being mean to them either.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” Fitz points out. “Just blunt. Like children or puppies. Tell them to do something and don’t let them distract you.”

She looks like she might press it further for a moment, but then she shrugs it off. It’s not the first time they’ve had this argument, but it never really goes anywhere. Instead she turns toward the door. “You should get Charlie set up to go,” she says. “We can discuss the other thing later, if you like.”

He looks a bit disappointed, but nods. “Alright. I’ll see you later, then.”

“Later,” she echoes. She heads out and passes Charlie on the landing, saying, “He’ll be ready for you very soon, Charlie.” She thinks about apologizing for how awkward she and Fitz were, but - well, he’s right. It’s not as if Charlie will remember.

Charlie smiles at her. “Thank you, Dr. Simmons. Have a nice day.”

“You, too,” Jemma replies before moving along. She’s nearly halfway down the stairs when she remembers the half-eaten bag of crisps still sitting up in the office, and really it’d be foolish not to finish them so she goes back to retrieve them. This means she happens to catch Charlie’s eye as Fitz is setting the chair up, which is something she doesn’t normally do.

She chalks it up to her odd mood when the sight of Charlie’s aimless smile as she’s tipped backward makes her stomach flip.


	3. am I only a ghost? 'cause what I fear the most is me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dollhouse is hired to provide protection for a popstar; Robbie continues his investigation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, Laura and (Agent) Harris are characters in the show. Do we actually remember anything about them? Nah, but they sure did have names we could borrow. Kirsten and Delia just came out of nowhere, though.
> 
> Charlie (Yvette): Daisy  
> Foxtrot (Leonie): Kara  
> Tango: Bobbi  
> Bravo (Darius): Mike  
> India (Emily): Raina
> 
> cw: vague discussion of suicidal ideation.

“Phil, thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” says Mr. Harris, sitting on the leather couch and smiling gratefully.

“Of course,” says Phil, returning his smile. “What’s on your mind?”

“Unfortunately but predictably, it’s Laura,” Mr. Harris sighs. “I swear if I knew she’d be this much trouble, I would have never gotten the label to sign her.”

Phil makes a sympathetic face. “What’s going on?”

“She seems to have attracted a stalker,” Mr Harris says. “I don’t blame her for that, I’m not a monster, but her attitude about the whole thing is disturbingly cavalier. She refuses to take proper precautions, shirks her bodyguards at any possible opportunity…”

Nodding, Phil chimes in, “So you want, what, a bodyguard she can’t sneak away from?”

“Preferably one she won’t _want_ to sneak away from,” Mr. Harris corrects. “I think a great deal of why she tries to run and hide comes down to a sense of rebellion. Sticking it to the proverbial man, even if that means putting herself in danger.”

“Oh, I see. So you want a bodyguard who can also be a friend?”

“A friend who also performs the duties of a bodyguard,” Mr. Harris says with a wry smile. “A friend who will protect her without… striking her as someone to avoid.”

“That makes sense,” says Phil. “Did you have any sort of cover story in mind?”

Mr. Harris shrugs dismissively. “As it happens, we have a vacancy in her company,” he says. “One of the backup singers quit to join the national tour of _Hamilton_ , the lucky devil.”

Phil raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment aside from “So you’ll need someone who has a decent voice, then.”

“Can’t that be programmed in?” Mr. Harris asks. “If there’s absolutely no other option, I suppose she could do hair or makeup or costumes, but Laura’s less likely to befriend people she doesn’t see as being _on her level_.” He rolls his eyes.

“I think we can work something out,” says Phil with a laugh. “Anything else you’ll need?”

“Beauty goes without saying,” Mr. Harris chuckles. “That aside, I trust your judgment, Phil.”

 

* * *

 

Yvette kind of can’t believe she’s at tryouts to sing backup for Laura, _the_ Laura. Her agent only booked this for her last week, so her head is still spinning a little bit, but she figures all she can do is go in there and do her best.

She’s the twelfth girl they call, and she’s one verse into “Chandelier” when she hears someone start to sing along with her. When she realizes who it is, she almost stops mid-word. Laura herself has gotten onstage with her and is harmonizing. Quickly, Yvette backs off and lets Laura take the lead, slipping into the backup role as if she’s born to do it.

Laura is smiling, like _really_ smiling, encouraging and complimentary all at once. Her posture is easy - much less formal than Yvette’s, probably because she doesn’t have anything to prove - and it’s sort of like just playing around with a friend. Except the friend is Laura, who basically radiates star power.

Once the song is over, Yvette’s honestly not sure what to say. She just kind of stares at Laura with her mouth open, which she’s aware is hideously uncool.

“Sounded pretty good,” Laura remarks, still as casual as anything.

“Thank you,” gasps Yvette, startled. “Um, I’m Yvette. Hi.”

“Laura,” says Laura, nodding as if to add _but you know that_. “I’m getting a really good feeling about you, Yvette.” She turns toward her manager and production staff, affecting curiosity. “It too early to talk contracts?”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Harris asks (trying not to show how pleased he is that this is going smoothly). “There are still a few more girls left.”

Laura glances at Yvette, then back to Mr. Harris. “Yeah, I think I’m sure.” To the other auditioners she says, with a sympathetic frown, “You guys were all great. But sometimes music, like romance, is a matter of chemistry. We’re gonna keep you on file, don’t worry, but we’re done for today.”

Mr. Harris nods brusquely, starting to usher the other girls out. He hadn’t expected the new girl would get picked so easily - he expected some lobbying, maybe callbacks, given how difficult Laura is to please at times - but it certainly makes his job easier. “I’ll get the preliminary paperwork,” he says as he heads off.

“So,” Laura grins.

Yvette’s eyes are still wide. “Just...just like that?” she asks, incredulous. “I got the gig?”

“When it’s right it’s right,” Laura shrugs. “You got it if you want it.”

“I really, really do,” says Yvette, smiling so widely her face starts to hurt. “Um, what should I do first?”

“Like Harris said, there’s paperwork,” Laura says. “But until he gets back, how about you tell me more about yourself than that resume that I admit I only skimmed.”

Trying not to seem intimidated, Yvette rattles off, “Went to Berklee in Boston, did show choir there, was in a few other shows but I don’t have much experience with performing in front of an audience.”

“Well, it’s not as scary as it seems,” Laura declares. “Most of the time. What’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever been in front of?”

“2500,” says Yvette. “I’m guessing there’ll be more than that?”

“That’s a smaller show,” Laura says. “The biggest ones get closer to 100,000.”

Yvette’s eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

“If it helps, you won’t be able to see most of them,” Laura says. “Stage lights and all.”

Yvette nods slowly, still stunned. “Um, okay,” she says. “Sorry, this is just...a lot to take in.”

“You’re fine,” Laura shrugs. “You’re good. This is freaky stuff at first, but you’ve got this. You picked a kickass audition track, by the way.”

Grinning, Yvette replies, “Thanks! I almost went with something less mainstream, but I figured it would show off my range better. Anything else I need to know?”

“Oh, tons,” Laura chuckles. “It’ll come with time, though. Let’s go get you into some costumes.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Fitz,” says Mack over the comms, “they only told me the bare minimum about this engagement. Is she really just playing glorified babysitter to a pop princess?”

Fitz scoffs. “When you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”

“Because it _is_ ridiculous,” Mack points out. “What, is she gonna just go on tour with her?”

“No,” says Fitz, sounding exasperated. “It’s just for a little while, until Laura’s stalker shows up and Charlie can take care of him.”

“Come again?”

“I programmed her with all the skills of a Secret Service-level bodyguard,” explains Fitz. “When the guy causes trouble, her instinct will kick in and she’ll protect Laura at all costs. She won’t let that bastard get away.”

Mack rolls his eyes. “You know I care about her, but I dunno if she’s enough by herself to take care of this. I mean, we don’t even know what this guy is capable of.”

“Oh, I’ve taken care of that too.” Fitz sounds even more smug than usual. “She’ll have a... _friend_ along to help her out.”

“What,” Mack deadpans. “What the hell did you _do?_ ”

In the background, he hears Melinda deadpan, “You know we can’t use every single Doll in the house on this one engagement, right?”

“It’s fine, it’s _fine,_ ” Fitz grumbles quietly. Mack has to strain to hear it. “I’ve got it under control.” Then he says directly to Mack, “Don’t worry. There are contingency plans afoot.”

 

* * *

 

“Hello,” Tango says, approaching Foxtrot with a smile. “How are you today?”

“Very well, thank you,” Foxtrot replies. “I had a massage.”

“Massages are very relaxing,” Tango observes.

“Yes,” Foxtrot agrees. Shyly she reaches around to motion to her right shoulder, adding, “It hurt here.”

“Does it still hurt?” Tango asks, clearly concerned (more concerned than Dolls usually are).

“No,” Foxtrot says. “The massage helped. I feel much better now.”

Tango nods, satisfied. “I’m going to yoga,” she announces.

“I enjoy yoga,” Foxtrot muses. “May I go to yoga too?”

“Of course,” Tango says.

It’s not very far to go - just across the room - but they position themselves behind the other Dolls slowly going through a flow with their instructor. Every so often Foxtrot looks over at Tango, or Tango looks over at Foxtrot, and they smile in their aimless way. Nobody else seems to notice them doing this.

Isabelle comes in after they’ve been doing yoga for awhile and says, “Foxtrot, it’s time for your treatment.”

“Alright,” Foxtrot says, straightening up.

“Have a nice treatment,” Tango says, pausing in her movements. “I’ll save you strawberries.”

Foxtrot smiles again, bigger this time. “Thank you,” she says, and she waves as Isabelle leads her off.

Isabelle frowns slightly, considering what Tango’s interest in Foxtrot could mean, but she just leads Foxtrot toward Fitz’s room and decides not to push for an answer. She’s definitely not planning on saying anything to Fitz about it, because what is she, the gay police?

 

* * *

 

“And here we are,” says Darius, gesturing to the club with a flourish. “Don’t have too much fun, ladies.”

Leonie blushes and giggles. “Should I just go over and… I mean, would you introduce me?”

“Of course,” says Darius with a smile. “Follow me.” He leads her over to the table where Laura and the others are sitting and giggling. “Hey, ladies,” he says. “This is Leonie, she won that Number One Fan contest so she’s gonna be hanging out with y’all tonight.” His tone is light, but there’s an underlying _behave yourselves_.

Laura only heard about this contest, like, yesterday - but okay, whatever. Publicity? It’s not the biggest thing on her mind by a long shot. She looks the girl over - cute in a nerdy way, all juniors-department dress and glasses - and smiles, because that’s her job. “Hey, Leonie,” she says. “C’mon, come sit.”

“Okay,” Leonie says, grinning nervously. “I, I’m just so thrilled. I’ve never even been to America before, let alone...”

“Relax, hon,” Laura urges. “We’re just people. Scoot in. This is Kirsten and Delia and Yvette, they’re my backup singers.”

“And her _entourage_ ,” Delia adds with a smirk.

“I recognize you,” Leonie says eagerly. “You’re all wonderful.”

Yvette looks surprised. “Yeah? Thanks.” She flashes Leonie a grin. “So, tell us a little about yourself, cutie.”

Leonie’s eyes go wide. “I, well, I’m from Lausanne, that’s Switzerland -”

“Explains the accent,” Laura observes. “It’s sweet.”

“And anyway, I’ve lived all over Europe, but I, I’m not exciting, really,” Leonie continues, tucking hair behind her ear. “Mostly I read. And study. And obviously I listen to a lot of music.”

“Cute,” repeats Yvette. “What are you studying?”

“Art history,” Leonie says. “Which is fascinating, but less so when you’re trying to explain it to someone at a bar.”

“I’d like to hear more about it,” says Yvette. “But later, after you’ve had a drink or three. She’s buying,” she adds, nudging Laura playfully. “What’ll it be?”

Leonie blinks. “I don’t drink often,” she says. “Usually I just have wine, or whatever everyone else is having. What do you recommend here?”

“For you?” Laura muses. “They have this thing they call a Champagne Supernova, like the Oasis song. It’s sort of strawberry-flavored.”

“That sounds nice,” Leonie agrees. “One of those, please.”

“You’re ridiculously cute,” Laura laughs, nodding at Yvette before she waves a waiter over and places the order.

“So,” says Yvette, “what the _hell_ do you do with an art history degree?”

“Teach art history,” Leonie quips. “Or work in a museum. Something like that.”

“Aw. I hope you don’t get stuck in the back room of some museum,” Yvette replies, smirking. “You’re _way_ too cute for that.”

Leonie hasn’t stopped blushing, and in fact it’s only gotten more pronounced, but she does manage to joke, “There are plenty of non-back room jobs I could go for.”

Delia giggles. “Aw, she’s blushing. Adorable. You like dancing, Number One Fan?”

“Alone in my room with no audience, maybe,” Leonie laughs nervously.

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” Laura jokes. “You get to see all of us bust moves.”

“Hey, we can’t make her dance before she’s even had any booze,” jokes Yvette. As if on cue, the waiter brings her drink. “Guess I’m magic,” she adds, winking at Leonie.

“The booze is supposed to help me dance?” Leonie asks, wide-eyed.

Yvette shrugs. “You don’t have to if you don’t wanna, but it might help you feel more comfortable. Besides, we’re all gonna go dance our asses off and I dunno if you wanna sit here at the table by yourself.”

“I’ll think about it,” Leonie murmurs into her drink, clearly flustered. “This is, this is really sweet. The drink. Thank you for recommending it.”

“‘Course,” Laura grins. “We want to make sure you have a good time.”

“I kinda couldn’t not,” Leonie assures.

She’s two drinks down (and everyone else has had at least one more) when, apropos of nothing, she announces, “I put a bunch of your songs on this mixtape for a girl I liked, Laura. It didn’t work but it totally should have.”

“Oh my god, that is the _cutest_ thing!” gushes Kirsten.

“I thought so, but I guess that doesn’t work on everyone,” Leonie says brightly.

“It totally should have,” Laura says. “I bet it was a kickass tape.”

“Well, CD, technically,” Leonie says. “Mixtape just sounds better.”

Yvette nods. “She was missing out,” she says. “You seem like a great catch. How’re you feeling about dancing now?”

“I could dance, maybe,” Leonie shrugs. “Not every day you get this chance, right?”

“Sure isn’t,” Laura hums, holding a hand out for Leonie to take.

They’ve all barely stood up when suddenly a guy appears, maybe mid-twenties, looking nervous. He reaches for Laura’s arm, as if to pull her away, and in that moment something in Yvette snaps and she leaps forward to shove him backwards, grabbing both his wrists and twisting them behind his back. “Don’t touch her,” she hisses.

The guy lets out a whimper of fear and yelps, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just wanted to ask for a picture with her!”

Yvette feels herself calm, and she loosens her grip on the guy until he turns to flee, clearly terrified. She turns back to see the rest of the group staring at her. “Well,” she says, trying to shrug it off, “he was gonna grab your arm. That’s not cool.”

“Thanks,” Laura says, sounding faintly stunned. “I mean, a grabbed arm is far from the worst I’ve ever had, but I appreciate your effort?”

Leonie, meanwhile, is awed and clearly a little frightened herself, or at least intimidated.

“You were like a superhero or something,” says Kirsten. “That was badass!”

“It was really nothing,” says Yvette. “C’mon, let’s go dance!” She grabs Leonie’s hand and tugs her toward the dance floor.

They’ve only been dancing for a couple of songs when Darius, looking uncertain, appears. “I think maybe y’all have had enough fun here for tonight,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” Leonie says immediately, though nothing is her fault even remotely.

Yvette comes to put her arm around her shoulders. “It’s not your fault,” she says, narrowing her eyes at Darius. “Just paranoia and stuff. ‘Cause _somebody_ -” she inclines her head at Laura “-causes a commotion wherever she goes.” She grins, to show she’s kidding.

“Hey, you’re the one who jumped the guy,” Laura teases.

“I’m protective,” replies Yvette. “I always wanna save the damsel.” She winks.

 

* * *

 

Fitz, who’s chewing idly on a block of dry Ramen while he half-watches the screen with the Active’s vitals, half-focuses on playing _Fallout 3_ , is suddenly jarred out of his reverie by a beeping. “What!” he yelps, swiveling his chair to fully focus on the vitals screen. “What the _hell_?”

“What just happened?” comes Mack’s voice over the comms. “Charlie’s vitals just spiked.”

“Well,” Fitz says, setting down the Ramen on his napkin. “Something exciting definitely happened.” He mutes his game and listens to the audio from the engagement for a second or two. “Seems like maybe somebody tried to get close to Laura and Charlie’s bodyguard instincts activated?”

“Whatever it was, it freaked Foxtrot the hell out,” scolds Isabelle.

“They’re laughing now,” Fitz adds. “So I think it’s alright? No harm, no foul, right?”

“Kinda seems like there was some foul here,” replies Mack, sounding displeased.

Fitz is about to answer when Jemma pokes her head into the office, frowning. “I heard loud noises,” she says. “What’s going on?”

Fitz sighs. “It’s fine, Jemma. Just the pop star engagement.”

“Not fine!” both Mack and Isabelle protest at once. Mack continues, “Charlie went into bodyguard mode on a random who tried to get close to Laura. Freaked everyone the hell out.”

Jemma sighs. “Is it alright now?” she asks, mostly aiming the question at Fitz. “It seems unnecessarily dramatic.”

“Like I said, it’s fine.” Fitz rolls his eyes. Then he drops his voice. “You know handlers, making drama out of everything. Like overprotective parents, I swear to god.”

Jemma smiles, though a bit doubtfully. “Being protective rather _is_ their job,” she points out.

“I _suppose_ ,” he says with a mild pout. “Maybe babysitters is a better term.”

“Oversimplified, but if you must,” Jemma says.

Fitz rolls his eyes and pushes the button to mute his end of the call. Then he says, “The engagement might be overly complicated, but it’s what the client asked for. Something about how the pop princess needed women to connect with, or some bullocks.”

“It makes a sort of sense, I think,” Jemma muses. “Sometimes it’s easier to trust someone who you know likes you because they want to, not because they have to. Or because they think they have to.” She makes a face. “The nature of our business makes every relationship convoluted, really.”

Shrugging, Fitz says, “I didn’t ask questions, I just followed the orders. It seems to be working out alright so far, but I still think they should’ve just let me program her to kill any threats.”

Jemma looks aghast at that, like she always does. “But if this person _wasn’t_ a threat, wouldn’t that be outrageous?”

“Well, she’s a bodyguard, isn’t she? She should be able to neutralize any threats.”

“Yes, but imagine the red tape,” Jemma insists. “Since she’s not technically a bodyguard, she wouldn’t have the same legal advantage. Real bodyguards aren’t even fully exempt, I imagine.”

Fitz pouts. “I _suppose_ ,” he mutters. He unmutes the conversation.

“-much longer is this gonna take?” Mack is asking. “We’re not really gonna pit Charlie against this stalker, are we?”

Rolling his eyes, Fitz sighs and says to him, “We’ll let it play out a few days more. Hopefully she’ll be able to take care of him before it escalates much further.”

 

* * *

 

Robbie’s polishing his car on Saturday evening when his phone buzzes. He raises an eyebrow and flicks the screen open when he sees the new email notification.

It’s from an address he doesn’t recognize, dylanlight@gmail.com, and he almost doesn’t open it, but the subject is “Stella.” Shrugging, he reads it.

_You’ve been looking into that girl with a thousand names, right? You’re on the right track. I don’t have much info, but I know that one of her main pickup spots is in an alley between Guerrero Street and Third. Usually at night, some weeknights but almost always every weekend. She gets into and out of a black van. Don’t let them see you. They know I’m onto them. Godspeed, friend._

He should be suspicious. It’s vague, ominous, and definitely sounds fake. But hell, he’s getting desperate enough that he decides to throw caution to the wind and glances at his watch. If he books it, he can make it to that intersection before it gets too dark and stake it out.

He quickly texts Gabe - _Going out for a few hours, don’t wait up_ \- and starts up Lucy. He arrives just as it’s starting to get dark and parks her a couple of blocks down, strolling towards the alley while trying to look inconspicuous. Nobody’s paying attention to him. It’s Saturday night, everyone has better things to do.

He doesn’t pay attention to how much time has passed, but after awhile of staring down the alley trying not to seem bored (he’s _pretty_ bored), he starts messing around on his phone. That keeps him occupied, though he’s still paying attention to the alley. He’s paying so much attention to the alley that he doesn’t hear someone coming up behind him until there’s a sharp pain in the back of his head. He barely feels his body falling.

 

* * *

 

Laura is in her dressing room like she always is before a show, chugging water and messing with her makeup (yeah, she has a girl for that, but she always winds up making at least a couple changes of her own too). Tonight _should_ feel different, but it doesn’t. She can’t let it, or else someone would figure something out.

Yvette taps on the door, calling “You alright in there?” playfully.

“Yeah,” Laura replies, voice bright. “Come in!”

Yvette does, closing the door behind her. “How’re you feeling?” she asks, because she knows how Laura is on these nights even though she hasn’t been here that long.

“I’m okay,” Laura says, shrugging. Better not oversell. “Just getting in the zone.”

“You’re gonna kick ass,” Yvette says. “You always do. You know that, right?”

“Yeah?” Laura asks, blinking at Yvette. She’s actually taken aback by this.

Yvette nods. “I mean, I haven’t gotten all fangirly on you since the audition, but you’re super talented and people love you. Your shows are great. And you’re looking great,” she adds with a grin. “I mean, you always do, but y’know. Even better than usual.”

Laura can’t help it, she actually blushes. “Even better, really?” she teases.

“Yeah,” Yvette says, suddenly sounding a little shy. She drops her gaze, not meeting Laura’s eyes.

“Like, better how?” Laura presses. She’s vain. It’s in-character.

Yvette shrugs, suddenly awkward. “I dunno, the whole look is just really working for you,” she mumbles. “It’s pretty hot.”

“Thanks,” Laura murmurs. “You know, you’re kind of a babe yourself.” And that’s not even a lie.

“Aw shucks.” Yvette flips a lock of her hair behind her shoulder playfully. “You don’t have to say that, y’know.”

“I know,” Laura shrugs. “But I want to. It’s important to say things like that, you know, in case.” She suddenly stops mid-thought, feeling like she definitely said too much, and turns back to her mirror nonchalantly.

Yvette frowns. “In case what?”

“In case whatever,” Laura says. “Shit happens every day, you know?”

But Yvette doesn’t let up, narrowing her eyes. “Laura. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I _know_ you’re lying. Or at least, you’re not saying everything. What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s like - my, my uncle,” Laura says. “He got hit by a car when I was a teenager, and my aunt was always saying how she - how she wished she’d had one last chance to tell him how much he meant to her.” This isn’t a lie, but it’s kind of an asshole diversion. Oh well.

Sure enough, Yvette’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry,” she says. “That sucks.” She turns away, as if to give Laura space, then she pauses when she sees a pile of cards stacked haphazardly on the table nearby. “Aw, fanmail?” she asks, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s pretty cute,” Laura chuckles, though she’s still not looking Yvette in the eye.

“Have you looked at it yet?” asks Yvette. “Might cheer you up. I could read you some while you get ready?”

“Yeah, sure,” Laura hums, turning her attention to her hair. She’s definitely past the point of caring about it.

Yvette picks up one of the cards, smiling, and starts to read it. “Laura, I know I haven’t written in awhile but I want you to know my love for you has never...waned…” She trails off, reading the rest of it in silence. “Um,” she says finally, “this one seems kind of...weird.”

“Oh, you know fans,” Laura says dismissively. “It’s very personal for them.”

“Yeah, but whoever this is seems pretty into the fantasy that you guys know each other.” Yvette frowns, but when Laura doesn’t reply she moves on to the next card. Most of the others are normal, enthusiastic fan messages, but she comes across a few more that are similarly intense, all in the same handwriting. “Have you mentioned this to security or anyone?” she asks, holding up the cards. “This guy...I guess we don’t know it’s a guy...this person is saying stuff about how they want to take you away from all this so you two can live together forever and never be apart, and all the stuff they want to do for you and _to_ you, and it’s...it’s pretty weird.”

“Fantasy, like you said,” Laura shrugs. “Whoever it is just needs something nice to think about, something good in their life. Who would I be to take that from them?” She pauses. “He’d never do anything I didn’t ask for.”

Yvette quirks her mouth, looking worried. “How do you know? Have you been...I dunno, talking to him or something?”

“Wouldn’t you get curious?” Laura asks, not quite answering the question.

“Um, no, no I wouldn’t,” replies Yvette tersely. “You don’t know if this guy’s a serial killer or what, Laura! Just because he writes a lot of nice things about you doesn’t make him a good person!”

“It doesn’t mean he’s _not_ one, either,” Laura points out, sounding petulant.

Yvette sighs. “Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re thinking of doing something stupid like running off with him.”

“Not that,” Laura says simply.

“Then what?” replies Yvette, almost snapping.

Finally, Laura glances at Yvette, if in the mirror. “Do you know what it’s like having your every move on display?” she asks. “Fair game for every asshole on the internet to critique?”

“No,” says Yvette, “but I sure as hell know better than to entertain ideas of running off with a _stalker!_ ”

“I’m not running off with him,” Laura repeats. “Not even close.”

“Okay, so what are you thinking then? I thought we were friends.” Now Yvette sounds hurt. “I wanna know about stuff like this, okay?”

“We are,” Laura says. “I want you to know that. You’re one of the only good things about all this.” She waves her hand around. “But I also knew you wouldn’t get it.”

“Ouch,” says Yvette. “And this random guy gets it?”

“It’s a win-win situation,” Laura mumbles distantly. “I get an out, he gets some limelight of his own.”

Yvette’s still frowning. “By doing what, exactly?”

“Come on,” Laura says with a bitter laugh. “You’re a smart girl. You can figure it out.”

It takes Yvette a minute, but then she looks horrified. “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t let him do that. We can get you help, you can-”

“I can what?” Laura retorts. “This isn’t just some passing fancy.”

Yvette shakes her head, as if she’s trying to process all of this. “Let me help you,” she says finally.

“It’s too late for that,” Laura says. “The show must go on, right?” She puts on a bright smile.

“Laura,” Yvette chokes out, but before she can say anything else the musical cue from outside starts up. Laura gets up and leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

When Robbie opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Emily.

“Hey,” she says shyly. “Um, I called and the doctor picked up and he said where you were, so I came, is that okay? I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Robbie blinks. “Um. Hi? What happened?” He feels his head throb a little and grunts in pain.

“They weren’t sure, and, um, I’m not family so they couldn’t get me details, but I heard one of the nurses saying you have a concussion?” Emily shrugs, unexpectedly shy.

“Oh.” Robbie glances around. “The last I remember is…” He trails off. Probably he shouldn’t explain too much in front of Emily. That would be weird. “I was...walking. Walking downtown.”

She cracks a smile. “Making your way downtown, walking fast…?”

He just gives her a confused look. She’s probably making a reference, but it goes over his head. “Sure,” he says uncertainly, trying for a smile.

“Sorry,” she sighs, smiling back at him. “It’s a song. An older one. That probably you wouldn’t know because I’m pretty sure you’re not the piano-driven pop music type. Yeah.”

Robbie chuckles. “Afraid not. I’ll take your word for it.” He pauses, feeling awkward. “You don’t...have to stay here if you don’t want to. I’ll be...fuck. Do you know where my brother is, is he here?”

“Well, I wanted to stay till you woke up, at least,” Emily shrugs. “I mean, I hope that’s not weird. I just came out to make sure… and I brought cupcakes. Um, if you care.” She pauses to frown over that question. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him, but I also don’t technically know him, so.”

Robbie finally notices the plate of cupcakes on the shelf beside his bed. He smiles a little before saying, “Can you get my phone? Or can I borrow yours if mine got stolen? I need to call Gabe, he has no idea where I am.”

“This one’s yours, right?” Emily gets up and goes to the table along the wall, where a phone sits charging. “Thank goodness for universal chargers and considerate nurses, I guess.” She hands the phone over with a nervous laugh.

Robbie calls Gabe quickly - he’s worried, but Robbie manages to talk him out of trying to get down here to see him - and then turns back to Emily. “Thanks,” he says, almost shyly. “The cupcakes look good.”

“I might have snuck one before I got here,” she says. “I think they’re pretty good, myself, but I’m a little biased.”

That makes him laugh, and he’s surprised by the laughter. “I’m not used to this,” he murmurs.

“Baked goods?” she jokes.

“Yeah,” he says with a little shrug. “And, I dunno, people giving a shit about me. Besides Gabe, I mean.”

“That’s too bad,” she murmurs. “You seem like a good guy. It’s easy to give a shit about you.”

He shrugs again. “Thanks, I guess. You weren’t waiting on me long, were you?”

“Not too,” Emily promises. “I was just on my phone and stuff, no worries.” She waves her own phone with a smirk. “Stupid addictive word games, y’know how it is.”

He doesn’t, but he nods anyway. “Good,” he says, then isn’t sure what to say next.

“You don’t need me to get the nurse or anything, do you?” she asks. “I mean, you seem fine, but if you’re concussed…”

“Don’t know,” Robbie says, smiling lazily. “Never been concussed before.”

“Well, you don’t feel… weird?” Emily prompts. “I don’t really know either, I’ve avoided head injuries. But I’m pretty sure you’d know if you felt weird.”

“It hurts a little, but not too bad. I think I’ll be fine.” He wants her to stay, but he’s not sure what to say to convince her. So instead he says, “Hope I didn’t ruin any big plans you had tonight.”

“My biggest plan was to make fun of pretentious food bloggers on Instagram while having gloriously unhealthy Chinese takeout,” she deadpans, smirking. “I’m free as a bird.”

“Well,” he says awkwardly, “I have a TV. If you want to...watch something.”

“I’m guessing you don’t have too many fancy channels, but I bet there’s something we could watch,” she agrees, smiling. “Maybe also something to make fun of, if you’re into that.”

Robbie smiles. “Sure.” He offers her the remote. “You start?”

 

* * *

 

“Tonight I wanna bring someone very special out here,” Laura says brightly, waving toward the wings as her backup musicians vamp. “This girl is the epitome of why I do what I do. She’s a sweet, supportive person and _my number one fan_ , Leonie!”

Leonie squeals and runs into Laura’s waiting embrace. It’s the dream of a lifetime, and even though it’s sort of terrifying to be in front of all of these people the lights are so bright that she can’t really see them that well (she’s kind of wishing she sprung for the anti-reflective coating on her glasses because the glare is killer, but hey, it’s one night, she’ll be fine). She’s not sure what to say, though, so she just grins.

“Say hi, hon,” Laura encourages, giving Leonie a squeeze.

“Hi, Los Angeles!” Leonie calls, waving eagerly. It’s obvious she’s nervous, but who wouldn’t be?

The crowd roars approvingly, but soon one particular voice pipes up, yelling, “She’s not your number one fan! _I_ am!”

A man steps out of the crowd, pointing accusingly at Laura. “You said I was the only one who understood you! You said we’d do this together!”

Yvette and the other backup singers gasp. The musicians stop playing and gasp as well. The crowd goes silent. Leonie stiffens, unsure of what to do, but Laura doesn’t let go of her yet.

“This doesn’t change that,” Laura says tersely.

“Doesn’t it?” The man whips a gun out of his pocket and holds it up, which makes the crowd panic and back away from him, toward the doors; the other performers run backstage too, whispering to themselves anxiously. There’s a commotion of noise and security guards make a beeline for the guy.

“No,” Laura says. “Leave us the fuck alone, would you?” This is addressed to the security guards. To the new guy, she says, “This was a publicity gig. One last hurrah, right? Leave them on an up note.”

“What is he talking about?” Leonie asks, her voice shaking.

“Didn’t she tell you?” the guy calls, laughing bitterly. “Your hero’s fed up with everyone’s shit and she wants to make it all go away. For good.”

“ _What_?” Leonie shrieks.

Laura doesn’t make eye contact. She just nudges Leonie away from her, more harshly than needed. “Leave her out of it,” she mutters.

“But she should know,” replies the guy. “They should _all_ know! You hate it, the attention, the pressure, everyone screaming at you all the time. You want it to end. Isn’t that right?” He climbs onto the stage, still holding the gun.

“This isn’t what I wanted, how I wanted it,” Laura admits softly. “I wanted to make music, see the world, be in some magazines. I wanted to be someone to admire, not something to rip apart. I’m tired, I’m _exhausted_. But that’s not _her_ fault. It’s not a lot of their faults. I can still be a hero for the good ones once I’m gone.”

He snorts. “Sure, sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

Leonie screws her face up suddenly and yells, “ _Guards_!”

The guy growls in frustration and before the security guards can intervene, he’s grabbed Leonie to use her as a human shield, holding the gun to her head. “Don’t even think about it,” he says. “I’ll do it!”

There’s a yell from somewhere offstage and then suddenly Yvette has barreled into him, knocking both he and Leonie over. He grunts, Leonie shrieks, and Yvette growls, “Get out of here!” at Leonie before pinning the guy to the ground.

He seems too dazed to fight back much, though he kicks at her while she tries to wrestle the gun away from him. Ultimately, she’s successful, kicking it away before rolling him over and forcing his arms behind his back. “Stay down,” she hisses in his ear. “You lost.” He doesn’t respond; he’s gone limp at this point, not fighting her anymore. Like he knows he shouldn’t bother.

Once security has removed him from the building, Yvette turns to Laura. “Um, I think I’d better get her out of here,” she says, nodding at Leonie, who is trying very hard (and sort of failing) not to cry. “Are you...okay?”

“I, I - Laura!” Leonie exclaims, sniffling. “I’m so _sorry_ , I had no idea you…”

Laura, who’s holding it together only slightly better, wraps her arms around herself and shrugs. “I’m not sure anymore,” she says. “I… think I was listening to the wrong people.” She glances shyly at Yvette, then down at her own feet. “I have some shit to work out. This was maybe a dramatic way to realize that. But I am sorry you got dragged into it.”

Bravely Leonie declares, “What matters most is that you’re safe.”

“Thanks,” Laura chuckles. “It matters that you’re safe too, you know, but I do appreciate it.” She sighs. “You guys get out of here, okay? I’ll keep in touch. I promise.”

Yvette nods. “Let me know if I can do anything for you, okay?” She smiles at her. “And...thanks for the last couple weeks. It’s been incredible. I hope we can stay friends?”

“Yeah,” Laura says, nodding. “I’d really like that.” Awkwardly, she holds both arms out to the other women, inviting a hug; Leonie skitters over like she doesn’t even have to think about it, and Yvette steps over too, wrapping her arms around Laura. When the hug ends, they both step back smiling.

“Good luck,” murmurs Yvette. Then she turns to Leonie. “C’mon, I’ll get you to a safe place.”

Leonie takes a shuddery breath. “Yeah,” she whispers. “Yeah. I hope you find what you’re looking for, Laura.” She waves goodbye before reaching for Yvette, clearly seeking more physical comfort.

Yvette grabs her hand and squeezes it. “I’ll call us a cab,” she says. “Back to your hotel?”

“Yeah,” Leonie repeats. She pulls her glasses off and starts to rub them clean with her shirt, biting her lip. “Thanks, you know.”

“You’re welcome.” Yvette gives her a (slightly shaky) smile. “I’m sorry things got...crazy.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Leonie insists.

Yvette shrugs. “Still. Anything I can do for you besides get you back to the hotel?”

“Would you mind keeping me company for a little?” Leonie asks, clearly timid.

“Yeah, sure, I can do that. Anything in particular you wanna do?”

Before Leonie can answer, Yvette’s manager Mack steps out of apparently nowhere. “Hi, Yvette. Would you like a treatment?”

Yvette blinks at him, a little startled. “Um, sure, but I should get Leonie to-”

Just then, a woman also appears and says, “Hello Leonie, would you like a treatment too?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Leonie exclaims. To Yvette she explains, “This is Isabelle, she’s been coordinating things for me on the trip. They must have called her when everything started to go down…?”

Yvette nods. “Okay. Text me when you get back? I wanna make sure you’re okay.” Then she turns to Mack. “A treatment sounds _great_. Let’s go.”

“Promise,” Leonie says.

Isabelle puts her hand on Leonie’s back, still smiling, but looking a bit impatient. “Time to go now,” she says, herding Leonie away.

Yvette looks after them for a moment before Mack leads her away as well.

 

* * *

 

“Hi, Foxtrot,” says Charlie as Foxtrot walks up to the art corner. “Do you want to paint?”

“Yes, thank you,” Foxtrot says with a smile, taking a seat between Charlie and Tango.

“Hello, Foxtrot,” Tango says eagerly, her own smile significantly bigger.

“Hello, Tango,” Foxtrot replies.

“Here is the purple paint,” says Charlie, sliding it over to Foxtrot. “You like purple. Your shirt is purple.”

Foxtrot giggles. “It is!” she says. “Thank you.”

For a moment, Tango looks flustered, watching the other two interact. Then she looks down at her station and picks up the blue paint to hand over, almost insistent. “My shirt is blue,” she says. “If you mix blue and purple you make indigo. I think indigo is a very pretty color.”

Foxtrot blinks. “It is,” she agrees. “I like indigo too. Thank you, Tango.”

As this transpires, Dr. Simmons passes by with a clipboard and Charlie looks up. “Hi, Dr. Simmons!”’

“Hello, Charlie,” Dr. Simmons says pleasantly. “Tango, Foxtrot. You’re painting, I see.”

“I like painting,” Tango agrees.

“It’s very enjoyable,” Foxtrot adds.

“I’m painting a mountain!” says Charlie, holding it up to show her.

“It’s a very nice mountain,” Dr. Simmons says. It’s not the first time a Doll has wanted to share at art time, there’s nothing unusual about it.

“Foxtrot is painting the sky,” Tango declares, glancing over at the other woman’s painting. “It’s very pretty. Like at nighttime.” Considering her palette of blue, purple, and everything in between, it has to be nighttime.

Foxtrot blushes. “Thank you, Tango,” she says. “I like stars.”

Dr. Simmons blinks. It _is_ a little unusual that one Doll is sharing another’s work, and between that and the conversation she overheard as she approached she’s reminded of the video that Fitz showed her, the one of Foxtrot and Tango by the pool. “Odd behavior,” he’d called it, and sworn to keep track of it. She’d sworn too.

All they’re doing is being friendly with each other, though. That’s all it is. It’s coincidence and politeness and - and there’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s not like before, with - it’s not dangerous. They’re just being nice. Isn’t that what they _do_?

“It’s very nice, Foxtrot,” she says after a moment. “I - I need to go work. Have fun painting.” And with that she hurries off, visibly anxious for reasons none of the Dolls can place.

“She seems worried,” says Charlie, frowning. “I hope she feels better soon.”


	4. I've been sleepwalking, dreams talking, telling myself that soon I will be feeling alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What should be a routine heist engagement goes unexpectedly awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tango (Lake): Bobbi  
> Charlie (Taffy): Daisy  
> Mike (Ivan): Lincoln  
> India (Emily): Raina  
> Foxtrot (Taffy): Kara

“So Silas,” Lake murmurs, idly fingering the plastic handcuffs hanging from her belt loop. “Have you been a naughty boy?”

“Naughty boy makes it sound like you’re Mrs. Claus about to give me coal,” Silas says, tilting his head. “But if you’re wondering if I’ve misbehaved and need to be punished, probably.”

“Good thing I’ve got the the real thing in my bag upstairs, then,” Lake teases. “These are far too flimsy to hold up.”

“Oh, yes, Officer,” Silas exclaims, looking delighted now that the flirting suits his linguistic choices.

Taffy rolls her eyes. “Will you quit flirting with the client?” she hisses at Lake. “We’ve got other things to focus on.”

“Flirting makes this look natural,” Lake retorts. “Like we’re not just casing this party. Besides, the guy asked me to wear a sexy cop outfit. It’s expected.”

“Whatever,” sighs Taffy. Then she glances over at Ivan. “What about you, you ready to pull this off, loverboy?”

Ivan flushes, glancing at Jude, who’s supposed to be his date for the evening. He’s ridiculously easy to embarrass, and he’s a sucker for pretty boys with dark eyes (which Jude is). “I’ll be fine,” he says.

“We should go over the plan again,” Jude says. “Once Keenan shorts the lights out, we only have a minute and a half to meet up with him.”

“And then we have to scurry down to the basement storage, we know,” Lake interrupts.

“It has to go smoothly,” Jude mutters, clearly sullen.

“It’ll be fine,” Ivan says, patting Jude’s shoulder like he’s not sure what else to do.

“Anyway,” Taffy says to Lake, “your outfit is better than mine.” She gestures at her outfit, which was labeled “sexy ninja,” and shakes her head. “How am I supposed to be taken seriously with this on?”

“Isn’t that kinda the point?” Lake shrugs. “We look like people you wouldn’t take seriously. Ergo, not threats to the establishment.”

Silas nods. “That’s what I was thinking,” he says, although it’s obvious that wasn’t all he was thinking.

“And on that note, how about we get our dance on while we’re waiting?” Lake suggests. “Silas?”

“Uh, sure,” Silas says, looking surprised.

Jude and Ivan, after some anxious glances between them, head out to the dance floor. Taffy sighs, since her appointed partner Keenan is in the other room. “Cool, guess I’ll just hug the wall then.”

“Uh,” Silas says again, “if you wanna go out, I can hang back? I’m not much of a dancer.” And watching two hot girls dance isn’t exactly a hardship.

“What do you say, Taff?” Lake asks.

Taffy tosses her head, but offers her hand all the same. “Why not? You’ll only get more annoying if I say no.” But she’s smirking.

“You’re a brat,” Lake sighs. “C’mon.” She leads Taffy onto the dancefloor, twirling her as they walk.

“But you love it,” Taffy says.

“Yeah, well, you’re also one of the best at what you do,” Lake hums, drawing Taffy closer with an arm around her waist.

“Damn right.” Despite herself, Taffy nestles a little closer. “You losers would be lost without me.”

“I think we’d be okay,” Lake says. “But this is better.”

Taffy’s about to respond indignantly when the lights suddenly flicker and then go out. “Oh,” she murmurs, as voices around them rise in shock and confusion. “I guess that’s our cue to get to work.”

“Save the fun for later,” Lake remarks wryly, pulling Taffy off the dancefloor and to meet up with Silas, Ivan, and Jude.

“Let’s go!” Jude hisses, and in the ensuing mayhem (not quite chaos, but confusion, at least) they hurry for the side door they found before the party got going.

Once they’re in the hallway, they run into Keenan. “Good,” he says, “there you are. We’re all set.”

Everyone starts pulling their respective tools out of their… well, wherever they managed to hide them in their storebought Halloween costumes. “It’s lucky that nobody thought to check my stupid police baton for actual dangerous supplies,” Lake says, pulling out a slender blade.

Taffy, who has managed to produce a lockpicking kit from...well, nobody really wants to know, snorts. “Guess it came in handy for something.”

From there, it goes pretty smoothly - it’s a standard jewel heist, stealing the jewels right out from under the nose of the hotel staff who are putting on this vaguely Halloween-themed ball and auction. Taffy breaks into the vault without batting an eye, and they’re just bagging up the last of the jewels when Taffy’s phone rings.

“Sorry,” she says, “gotta answer it.” It’s their security guy, Mack, who disabled all the alarms form outside. “What’s up? Don’t have a lot of time here,” she says once she’s answered it.

“Just calling to check up on you.”

“It’s blue skies,” she says, rolling her eyes. He’s always been protective of her. It’s cute and annoying all at the same time. “We’re packing up the last of the jewels and-”

She’s interrupted by a loud dial tone noise and then the sound of the large door slamming shut.

When it finishes, she squints at the phone in her hand, hard to see in the little light they have from a couple of flashlights. “What is this?” she asks nobody in particular. “Did I fall asleep?”

 

* * *

 

“What the hell?” Fitz stares at his computer screen, which is flashing DISCONNECTED. He taps the button once, then twice, to make sure that there hasn’t been some kind of error. “What…?”

Of course, there’s nobody to hear him, because Mack and the other handlers were on the other end of the line. The Dolls’ vitals are still going - elevated heartbeats, a reasonable response to a slightly stressful heist - but if his comm link’s been cut off, the handlers’ probably have been too.

He’s trying to figure out _what_ , exactly, happened, when Phil barges in, looking alarmed and disheveled. “What _happened?_ ” he pants. “I got an alert that the comm links had been severed and ran down here right away.”

Phil’s office is four floors up, so that explains the panting. “I don’t know!” Fitz replies, glaring at the screen. “I was trying to figure it out myself!”

“Did you, I don’t know, _do_ something to sever the link?”

“Hey now, I haven’t done anything! I was just sitting here and then-”

“Fitz, what the _hell_ happened?” Melinda’s appeared behind Phil, looking stormy. Jemma bounds in just behind her, wide-eyed. “Explain yourself,” Melinda snaps.

“May, I don’t have any more of an idea of what happened than you, alright?” Fitz tries resetting everything, which fails. “I’m trying to figure it out, so stop yelling at me!”

Jemma glances between the other three with a panicked expression, then says, voice wavering, “We should - we should talk through all of the options! Because if we talk through everything, we can eliminate things and discuss possibilities we might not have thought of by ourselves, and if we’re very rational about it we won’t start panicking! That would be incredibly unproductive, if we just let ourselves panic…”

“Jemma,” Fitz says, tone suddenly firm. “Sit down. Don’t talk for a second. Have a juice box.” He offers her one of the familiar green boxes.

Frowning, Jemma accepts the juice and sits down on his couch. At least he didn’t tell her to take a breath. She hates being told to breathe, as if she was so daft she couldn’t remember on her own.

Melinda glances over at Jemma, giving her a look that’s almost reassuring, and then says, “She’s right. Thinking’s a good idea at this stage, since none of us seem to know what happened.”

“Yes, I know,” grumbles Fitz. “So. We’re cut off from the handlers...I’ll try dialing them again, I guess.” He presses a few buttons and finally is able to reconnect. “Hello? Hello?”

“Fitz?” Mack sounds sort of panicked. “What’s going on over there? There was a weird dial tone noise and we got cut off, and we can’t talk to them, but the vitals went haywire for a second.”

“Wait.” Fitz raises an eyebrow. “You can’t talk to them? You mean the Dolls?”

“Yes, I mean the Dolls!” Mack says, clearly exasperated. “We’ve been trying to figure out how to reconnect with them for five minutes, but there’s no way to. There was that dial tone noise, then we got cut off and their vitals spiked. They’ve stabilized a little now, but we still have no idea what’s going on.”

“Maybe it’s just because they’re in the basement?” Phil says, trying to be helpful. “And they lost signal?”

Fitz doesn’t bother to hide his groan. “No,” he sighs, “that’s not the issue at all. Mack, what do you mean the vitals spiked?”

“Their pulses went nuts,” chimes in Hunter. “Like something happened at their end at the same time the noise did.”

“If they were in Dollstate, I’d say it’s possible that that noise would freak them out by itself,” Jemma mumbles, clearly fretting. “They’re not used to sounds like that. But there’s no reason a dial tone would startle theoretically normal adults.”

“You said before that the vault was going to go into lockdown when they got in there, right?” Gordon asks. “Tango and Charlie are still in there, but Mike’s in the hallway. We don’t even know if he heard the noise, but I sure as hell can’t hear or talk to him anymore. I want to go in and get him out.”

Fitz makes a noise like he’s thinking. “A dial tone...why would that be…”

“Everybody alright over there?” Hunter asks, sounding like maybe he was goaded into it.

“Yes,” Jemma says more loudly. She still sounds strained, but she guesses (accurately) that Hunter is asking after her. Unfortunately, her anxiety isn’t exactly a secret to the others in the house, so she’s gotten used to that particular sympathetic tone. “It’s just a nasty situation.”

“We’re fine, Hunter,” Melinda says, in a tone that indicates the topic is closed. “Fitz, you look like you’re onto something.”

“I might be,” Fitz says. “I’ve been toying with the idea of a way to do a remote wipe, y’know, do away with the whole chair concept, but this is...I don’t even know if that would be possible at this point.”

“A remote wipe?” Phil asks, going a bit pale. “So that means…”

“That means Charlie, Tango and Mike could be wandering around in Dollstate with nobody to help them,” says Mack. That statement hangs in the air a second while everyone considers it.

Then Melinda says, “Gordon, you said Mike’s not in the vault. Can you extract him?”

“Yeah,” replies Gordon. “I’ll do that right away.”

“And what about our two?” Hunter chimes in. “I don’t really fancy Tango being stuck in that vault with those blokes while in Dollstate.”

“Keep trying to contact them!” Jemma exclaims. “And - and can anyone get into the hotel’s security system from the outside? Check on the status of the vault?”

“I can try.” Mack doesn’t sound like he’s sure about this idea. “I’ll call back when we can figure something out over here.”

“Okay,” Fitz says, hanging up. “Well,” he says to nobody in particular, “this went tits up, didn’t it?”

“If you haven’t even sorted out the remote wipe tech yet,” Jemma murmurs, “who would have done? It’s remarkably complicated, isn’t it?”

Fitz shakes his head, but not like he’s responding to Jemma’s question. It’s more like he’s trying to convince himself something isn’t true. “It is,” he says finally. “I don’t think there’s a way to, well, undo it until we have them back here.”

“So how do we get them back?” Melinda asks. “We can’t exactly go storming in there with a retrieval team.”

“No,” agrees Phil, “that would be too dangerous. I don’t suppose either of you have any ideas?” He glances between Jemma and Fitz.

Fitz shakes his head again. “But _how?”_ he mutters, as if to himself. “It’s not as if my original experiments went badly, but they were...the precision required for a remote wipe is ridiculous, is it even possible to do it? And if this worked then why didn’t mine?”

“Oh dear,” Jemma says. She finishes the last of her juice box and then hurries to the fridge, adding, “If I grab myself another do you want one too?” It’s the best she can do in the situation.

“Sure, sure.” Fitz waves her off and keeps muttering to himself.

“Perhaps you’d better let us deal with this,” Jemma says warily, addressing Phil and Melinda even as she brings Fitz his juice. “It might be awhile.”

Phil looks skeptical, but he says “Call me if anything happens” before leaving. Melinda nods agreement and follows him out.

 

* * *

 

“That was a strange noise,” Tango declares. “Why did the small box make a strange noise?”

“I don’t know,” says Charlie, staring at the little box in her hand. She looks over at the strange men, who are staring at her. “What’s going on? What is this place?”

“I don’t know,” Tango echoes. “Maybe we are having a fire drill! We should try to leave.” Looking almost thoughtful, she walks toward the vault door and pushes on it, then frowns and declares, “The door won’t open.”

“What the fuck?” grunts one of the men. “Are you two putting on some kind of act?”

“Act?” Charlie blinks at him. “Like a play? Are we supposed to be in a play?”

“I’ve never been in a play,” Tango says by way of agreement. “If we were in a play, wouldn’t we have practiced? Practice makes you your best.”

The other man makes a mean face. “If this is some trick, like if you don’t want to get in trouble for fucking this job up…”

Charlie and Tango both stare at him, clearly shocked. “That’s not a nice word,” Tango informs him.

“Oh, you’re funny now,” says the other man. “C’mon, cut it out, finish putting the stuff in here and let’s get the hell out.” He shakes the bag he’s holding.

Charlie looks at Tango. “Do you know what he’s talking about?” she asks. “I don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember either,” Tango says, frowning. “What stuff?”

“Okay, this really isn’t funny anymore. What are you, glitching or something?” The man reaches for Tango’s arm.

Tango jerks away, making a noise of distress. “Please don’t touch me,” she mumbles, drawing into herself and going to sit by the door that won’t open. “I don’t know you. People who I don’t know shouldn’t touch me.”

Charlie steps forward, frowning. “You shouldn’t touch her,” she agrees, batting the man’s hand away. She moves to stand in front of Tango, like she’s protecting her.

The man shakes his head. “What the fuck is going _on?_ ” he asks his friend.

 

* * *

 

“You gonna try to tell me again this isn’t a date?” Gabe chuckles, stopping his chair by the front door and staring at Robbie and Emily pointedly.

“It’s not a date,” mutters Robbie, not looking at either Gabe or Emily.

Emily bites her lip. “Nah,” she says. “We’re just… watching movies. Nothing special.” From her tone, it’s not clear whether or not she actually means that.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Robbie asks Gabe, trying to sound stern. It doesn’t work.

“I was just heading out,” Gabe says cheerfully, reaching for the door. “Catch you guys later.”

“He likes to give you a hard time,” Emily remarks once they’re alone.

“He does,” sighs Robbie. “He means well, though. He thinks I don’t get out enough.”

“Could that be because your idea of a cool thing to do hanging out with people is to stay in and watch car movies?” she teases.

He chuckles. “Maybe.” Then he gets up to put the DVD in. “Y’know, you can pick a movie to show me too,” he says, trying for teasing.

“I’m still trying to decide what the best one would be,” she replies airily. “I mean, do I make you sit through a chick flick? Something artsy and pretentious?”

“Well, I can’t promise I’ll stay awake through all of it,” he says with a smile, “but I’ll do my best.”

“This is why I’m still trying to decide,” she says. “Maybe I’ll figure out the magical film that won’t make you doze off.”

“You can try,” he says, sitting down and bumping her shoulder with his. It’s a little awkward, but he’s trying. “Ready for this?” He nods at the TV.

“Ooh, wait,” she says. “Popcorn?”

“Oh, sure.” He stands up. “Microwave popcorn okay? We’re not much for cooking.”

“Yeah, totally,” Emily chuckles. “I’m not fancy. I just want something to munch on.”

“Coming right up.” Robbie starts a bag popping and then says, “Uh, do you want a drink with that? Water, or soda, or I might have some beer left?”

“Check on the beer?”

Robbie wanders over to the fridge and returns with two beers. “Not that I’m trying to get you to drink or anything,” he says, handing it to her. “Shit. That was creepy.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” she replies, shrugging. “Beer is good and it’s not like I’m such a lightweight that one beer is going to mess me up.”

“Good,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Anything else you want?”

“Nah, that’s enough,” she says. “You’re a better host than you think.”

He gives her a sheepish smile. “I’m trying, anyway.” The microwave dings and a minute later he’s back on the couch, offering her the bowl of popcorn.

“It’s appreciated,” she says. “Not just for the free beer and popcorn.”

He doesn’t seem sure how to reply to that, so he just grabs the remote and asks, “Ready?”

“You know,” Emily murmurs, almost shy, “I wouldn’t object to this being a date.”

“Oh?” Robbie tries to make sure his face doesn’t look as startled as he feels. It shouldn’t be a shock - she did kiss him on the cheek that one time - but he’s really not used to girls, or anybody, paying attention to him like that. “I mean...sure.” He smiles over at her. “This is kind of a crappy first date though. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she assures, grinning. “I’m having a good time. I’m comfortable. It’s unpretentious but fun.”

Pleased, he moves his hand a little so it’s kind of resting near hers, in case maybe she wants to hold hands. (God, he feels like a teenager, it’s ridiculous.) Then, suddenly, he remembers all the stuff with Stella-not-Stella and the guys who knocked him out, and he pulls his hand back. “Um,” he says, “actually, it might not be a great idea for me to...date. Not right now, anyway.”

She flinches. “There something going on I don’t know about? Someone?” She doesn’t sound judgmental, just a little wounded.

“No! God, that’s not it, I just…” Robbie takes a deep breath, sure he’s going to sound insane and this girl will run out of the house and never talk to him again. “I’ve been looking into something kind of weird, and it got me into some trouble. I don’t want you to be in danger if they come after me again.”

“In danger?” she asks, laughing. “What, some gangster is gonna treat me like a dizzy dame they can _rough up_?” She says the last part in a silly 40s kind of voice.

He can’t help but smile at that, but then he shakes his head. “No, but...look, it’s hard to explain.”

“So try,” she says. “If you want me to bug off, okay, fine, but I can take it. I promise.”

He sighs. “So, you met Gabe, you know he’s got that wheelchair. It wasn’t always like that. He...he got caught in a driveby, it was really bad. I wanted to get the guys who did that to my brother, so I started following them around, learning their hangout spots, watching them. One night a few of them were out and one of them had an escort with him. He said something shitty that made her leave, and we started talking. She said her name was Stella, and I looked into her, but I couldn’t find her no matter what I did. Then I spotted her in some other pictures, using different names. Once I trailed her to a restaurant and she was eating dinner with some guy who proposed to her. It was weird. Then I got an email promising me some answers if I met the sender somewhere - yeah, I know, it was stupid, but I didn’t have any other leads. I didn’t see who it was, but they roughed me up pretty good.”

“Oh,” Emily says, frowning. Whatever she was expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. “So that’s what got you in the hospital, I’m guessing.”

He nods. “I don’t know what else they’ll do. I didn’t want you involved.”

“How long has it been going on?” she asks, because that’s easier than replying to his worry.

“Gabe’s accident was a couple years ago, and I started poking into these guys a few months back. But it didn’t get weird until…” He cocks his head, thinking. “Right after I met you, actually. That’s weird.”

“Huh,” she says. “Maybe I’m part of the conspiracy.”

He snorts. “Unless you’re one of the escorts with a thousand names, I doubt it.” He smirks. “You’re not, right?”

“Me? An escort?” She bursts out laughing. “I’d be the worst escort in the world. I don’t have… well, the anything that it takes.”

“But you’re pretty,” he says, and then feels like an idiot.

“Thanks,” she smirks. “I wasn’t begging for that compliment. But I’m not exactly the Playboy Bunny type you think of when you think of escorts, and that means I’d be the ‘exotic’ one. I don’t have the patience to put up with guys saying that all the time.”

“Oh.” He nods. “I guess so, yeah.”

“And can you imagine having to pretend like you’re interested in everything someone says?” she adds, shaking her head. “I guess I’m stereotyping the guys who hire escorts, but I feel like they probably just talk about stock portfolios and how fancy their house is and other stuff like that.”

That makes him laugh. “I guess so, yeah. Doesn’t sound fun.”

“Plus the pervy stuff,” she says with a fake shudder. “No thank you.”

Making a face, he nods again. “I can’t imagine that part of it is fun for them.” Then he continues, “Anyway, I don’t want them to be able to target you because of me.”

She sighs softly. “Look, I’m not going to push. If you think just friends is safer, then just friends it is.” She makes sure to make eye contact before adding, “I just wanted to let you know I’m up for whatever. No weirdness.”

He blinks. That wasn’t at all what he was expecting. “Really?”

“Really,” she agrees. “I like hanging out with you, so however you’d rather do that, I’m cool.”

“Okay,” he says, grinning. “In that case…” He holds up the remote. “You ready for this?”

“I don’t know,” she says playfully, “am I?”

“You’re never really ready for Paul Walker and Vin Diesel,” he says cheerfully as he pushes play.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, everyone stop talking!” yelps Fitz. “You can’t just barge back in here and start yelling at me all at once! I can’t concentrate! And I’m the only one who knows how to fix this bloody mess!”

Phil immediately shuts up, looking sheepish. Melinda rolls her eyes. “There’s no need to get angry at people who are trying to help,” Jemma chimes in, but off of his reaction she adds, “but we could maybe all do with helping in a slightly more organized fashion.”

Fitz sighs. “Alright, alright.” He taps at his keyboard, brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m trying to figure out a way to tell remotely that they’ve been wiped,” he says, as if he’s talking to children (and not bright ones). “Their vitals are a bit higher than normal, but not off-the-charts, so it’s impossible to tell just from that. If the handlers can get back in contact with them we’ll know for sure…” He trails off.

“Can you call them back and see?” Phil asks.

Before Fitz can respond to that, Melinda snorts. “I’m sure he’s thought of that already, Phil.”

“Maybe he didn’t,” Phil replies.

“I did,” Fitz confirms. “They’re still running about like headless chickens, metaphorically speaking. Although, perhaps if I…” He taps a few more buttons and then his eyes widen. “Actually…” He pushes a few more buttons, and then the room is filled with the sound of a phone ringing.

“Wait, does that mean you’ve figured out how to call them?” Phil asks eagerly.

Fitz holds up a finger and then there’s a click. “Mack? You there?”

“Tell me you’ve figured this out, Turbo,” Mack says. His voice is a little shaky, like he’s having trouble keeping it together.

“Yes, I think so!” Fitz relays a series of directions to Mack about how to reconnect with the Dolls.

“If you say so.” Mack sounds unsure, but after a minute the phone rings again.

 

* * *

 

When the phone rings, everyone jumps. “What’s that?” Charlie asks. “Where’s that music coming from?”

“The little box is lighting up,” Tango offers, frowning.

“That’s because it’s a phone, dumbasses,” one of the men says. “Someone is calling you.”

“Don’t be mean,” scolds Charlie, and she stares at the phone for a second before poking at the screen. Then she’s not sure what to do next.

“Hello?” says a man’s voice. “Taffy?”

“I’m not Taffy,” says Charlie. “I’m Charlie. Who are you? How is your voice coming out of this little box?”

“Thank god,” sighs the man. “Charlie, do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Charlie replies, and it’s automatic. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Mack. I’m here to help you. Who’s with you?”

“I’m here!” Tango exclaims brightly. “I’m Tango. There are men here too, but they’re strange and rude.” Neither of the men seems interested in arguing this point.

“Tango?” says another man. “It’s Lance. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Tango says easily.

There’s another voice, muffled and hard to understand, and then Mack says, “Charlie, I have some things for you to do. Can you listen to me and do what I say?”

“Following instructions helps me be my best,” says Charlie.

“Good, good. Okay, so the first thing I need you to do is go over to the door. Bring your flashlight, okay?”

It’s not really Mack’s fault - he does his best, but he’s just not great at relaying Fitz’s (admittedly confusing, and not suited for Doll brains) instructions. Finally, since it seems like trying to tell Charlie anything else is going to be even more confusing, he sighs and just says, “Okay, never mind, Charlie. Let’s talk about something else. What’s your favorite color?”

Meanwhile, Fitz is having a conniption fit. “No!” he hisses. “We have to get this right or they’ll be stuck in there! They might well be arrested!”

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Jemma says quietly. “Not like this. Charlie can’t understand Mack’s instructions because Mack barely understands the instructions you’re giving him to give to her. What we need is - what we need is someone who can explain this to Charlie as simply as possible. Someone who knows exactly what to say. Fitz!” Her eyes light up. “The Taffy wedge. We could just -”

“-imprint another Doll with the Taffy wedge and have her relay the instructions!” Fitz snaps his fingers. “That’s brilliant! I knew I’d find the answer sooner or later!”

Jemma sighs behind her hand and rolls her eyes, not bothering to mention that he did certainly _find_ the answer, if not in his own mind. “Melinda, can you get - Foxtrot, perhaps? She wasn’t on an engagement tonight.”

Melinda nods. “Be right back.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Phil says, nodding approvingly.

“Thanks,” Fitz says smugly.

Not ten minutes later, Foxtrot is sitting up in the chair newly imprinted, newly Taffy. “Blue skies,” she says with a smirk.

 

* * *

 

They’re most of the way through the movie when Robbie (who’s seen this movie probably a thousand times, but still gets kind of into it) notices that Emily seems to have dozed off.

This isn’t a problem - he’s not _offended_ or anything - but before she fell asleep, she casually scooted over and leaned her head on his shoulder. And now she’s asleep.

He tries very hard to breathe normally. But it’s hard, because pretty girls don’t _do_ this when he’s around. He has no idea how to deal with this.

He opts to just sit very still until the movie’s over and he feels her start moving. “Hi,” he says. “You dozed off, I think.”

“Oh, crap,” Emily murmurs, blushing. “I’m sorry. I probably missed the big important car chase or whatever, huh?”

Robbie laughs. “It’s okay. I figured you probably needed the rest.”

“I feel bad, though,” she says. “I really was trying to pay attention. It was pretty fun! Just…”

“I’m not mad,” he promises. “I...kind of liked that you felt safe enough to fall asleep with me.”

“Yeah?” she asks, sounding kind of hopeful. “Well, I did. I do.”

“Thanks,” he says, grinning sheepishly. “I know we don’t know each other all that well, so that’s...pretty cool.”

“Well, I’ve got a good feeling about you,” she says, smirking. “And you’re surprisingly comfortable.”

“Really? My family was always saying I was too skinny.”

“Skinny and comfy aren’t mutually exclusive,” she points out. “Or possibly I’m biased.”

He grins. “Well, thanks. It was really nice.”

She seems about to say something else, but the front door creaks open and Gabe comes in, calling, “Hey, you two crazy kids decent?”

Emily glances at Robbie, shy almost, and Robbie rolls his eyes. “What do you think?” he calls back.

“I don’t know, that’s why I asked,” Gabe replies, grinning.

“Everyone’s clothes stayed on,” sighs Robbie. “Nothing for your virgin eyes to be scandalized by.”

“You sound pretty sure of that,” Gabe teases. He comes into the room to get a better look at them and brakes his chair by the couch, adding, “Looks like you still had fun.”

“We had a good time,” Emily agrees. “The cars are very fast and very furious.”

Robbie chuckles. “Sure are.”

“Good, good,” Gabe says. “I had a good night too, in case you were wondering.”

“Good,” nods Robbie. “Off to bed now.”

“Yeah, you just want the place to yourself, I see how it is,” Gabe replies, but he heads down the hall and closes his door loudly without actually fussing more.

Robbie snorts. “See what I put up with?” he asks Emily, but he’s obviously not upset.

“He cares about you,” Emily says. “It’s sweet.”

“Yeah. We’re pretty much all each other has,” says Robbie with a too-casual shrug, “so we have to look out for each other.”

“You’re a good brother, so I’m gonna guess he learned it from you,” she replies, trying for comforting.

He shrugs. “Trying, anyway.” Then he glances at his phone. “You’re probably tired, I can drive you home if you want?”

Emily’s expression falls a little - well, after passing out on his shoulder it stands to reason that she was hoping for a reversal of the earlier decision - but she shrugs it off. She does intend to be cool about this. “Yeah, that sounds good,” she says with a smile.

He tilts his head. “I mean...you _can_ stay over if you want? I just figured…” He hasn’t done much of this before, he has no idea how to proceed.

“Maybe another time,” she says. “I think we’re far enough along for tonight.” Not that she would mind going farther, but she can tell he feels uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” he replies, ducking his head. “This is all kinda new to me, I dunno.”

“It’s okay,” she promises. “I really don’t mind. I’m up for whatever you’re up for. And besides,” she adds, teasing, “you didn’t expect I’d be staying over. I bet you haven’t washed your sheets. I prefer clean sheets when I stay over with someone.”

“Wow,” he says with mock indignation. “I’ll have you know I washed my sheets just last week.” Then he grins and stands up. “C’mon. You can meet Lucy.” She’d taken the bus to his place, but it’s way too late for him to feel comfortable with her doing that now.

“Ooh, now _that’s_ a big step,” she remarks, rising and brushing herself off unnecessarily.

“Yeah, I don’t let just any girl meet Lucy,” he teases, gesturing for her to follow him outside. “Means you’re pretty special.”

“Thanks very much,” she says with a grin. “I’ve never met a guy’s car before, I mean one with a personality or whatever, so I might need you to walk me through the etiquette.”

“Of course,” he says, opening the front door and waiting for her to go ahead.

 

* * *

 

“...so basically, we’ve got two contractors who are stuck in the vault,” Phil finishes explaining, “and let’s just say they...er…”

“Went ass-up,” says Melinda, rolling her eyes and glaring at Fitz.

This iteration of Taffy, Taffy the second as it were, rolls her eyes. “This is probably what you get for hiring a second team behind my back,” she points out.

Phil looks sheepish. “Sorry about that,” he says. “You’ll be fully compensated for this as well as for the original job, of course.”

“I better be,” Taffy says. “You have anything to drink around here?”

“I’ve got juice boxes,” Fitz says, sounding doubtful. “Apple.”

“I have some tea upstairs?” Phil offers. “Afraid we don’t keep hard liquor in the office.”

“ _You_ don’t,” mutters Melinda, too quiet for anyone except him to hear.

Taffy rolls her eyes. “Tea is okay, I guess,” she concedes. “So what do you want me to do here?”

“Basically,” Fitz explains, as Phil hurries off to brew tea, “we need you to get on the phone and help walk them through opening the vault door. Unless you think it’ll be too difficult.” He keeps his tone light, just slightly challenging.

Taffy snorts. “I could open that vault in my sleep,” she says. “You’re sure they’re smart enough to follow my directions?”

“Probably,” sighs Melinda. “We can hope, anyway. We’d have you go down and do it, but there isn’t time.”

“Of course there’s not,” Taffy replies sarcastically. “Alright, hook me up. But for the record? You guys seriously owe me.” She leans back on the couch and motions for Fitz to pass her his phone.

 

* * *

 

Mack was telling Charlie a nice story about a pony when he suddenly interrupts himself. “Hey, Charlie, I have someone who’s gonna help you open that door, okay? You’ll hear a beep. When you do, I need you to press the green button. That’ll connect you to Taffy, and she’s gonna tell you what to do. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Charlie. “Can we finish the story later?”

“Sure we can.” Then the line beeps, and Mack says, “Okay, there it is. Green button.”

“Okay!” Charlie obediently pushes the green button. “Hello?”

“Hey, weirdo,” says a strange woman’s voice, sounding like she’s joking. “Put me on speaker. Touch the little picture of the triangle with lines beside it.”

Charlie squints at the phone for a second before finally figuring it out and pushing the right button. “Did that work? I can hear you speaking.”

“That’s the point,” the woman says. “Yeah, so I’m Taffy and I’m here to save your asses.”

“Thank god,” one of the men groans.

“That’s not a nice word,” Tango chimes in.

“Oh, there’s the other one,” Taffy chuckles. “Hi, cutie. So one of you should have a little vial of resin in your boot. Do you know what a vial is?”

“I don’t have anything in my boots,” Tango frowns.

Charlie takes off first one boot, then the other. It takes longer than it should, but knots are hard to untie. “Here!” she says, holding it up triumphantly. “It looks like a little tube of water.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Taffy drawls. “So here’s what I need the two of you to do.”

Very slowly, with lots of pauses so Charlie and Tango can ask questions, Taffy explains how they can use the vial of resin and a drill that one of the men provides to get the door open safely and without setting off any unnecessary alarms.

Emphasis on very slowly.

“This is complicated,” Tango says. “You’re very smart, Taffy. Which is funny. Taffy is candy, and candy isn’t smart. Candy is tasty, but only if you have a little bit of it.”

Taffy resists the urge to say something mean about how the two of them sure aren’t smart, but instead she replies, “I’m tasty no matter how much of me you have.”

“You’re funny, too,” Tango says cheerfully. “You can’t eat people.”

“I got it open!” chimes in Charlie. “Now what?”

“Now you get the hell out of there and find your friends,” Taffy instructs. “They’re in a van outside.”

“Okay!” Tango exclaims. She offers her hand to Charlie and says, “Let’s go.”

“Can we get out of here too?” grumbles one of the men. “I’m missing the game.”

“That’s not my business,” Taffy replies. “My work here is done.” With a click, Taffy’s voice disappears.

Tango glances at the phone, then back at the men. “Taffy is nice,” she says. “I would like to meet Taffy.”

“She’s helpful,” agrees Charlie. “Maybe we’ll get to meet her before our treatments.”

“That would be nice,” Tango says, starting to head for the door.

Next thing Charlie knows, Mack is meeting her. She hasn’t even gone outside yet but there he is, smiling. “Hey, Charlie,” he says. “Ready for your treatment?”

“Yes, please,” Charlie says. “I’m tired. A lot happened and some of it was scary.”

“C’mon, love,” Hunter says, reaching out an arm for Tango. “Time for your treatment.”

Tango lets herself be gathered, smiling faintly. “Treatments are nice,” she remarks. “Can we meet Taffy first? She was also nice.”

“I think you need your treatment first,” Hunter says, making a funny face. “Then we’ll see.”

“All right,” Tango replies.

 

* * *

 

“Jesus Christ,” sighs Isabelle, as “Taffy” is leaning back in the chair. “Will you guys quit using my Active for these last-minute rescues?”

“Everyone else who could have been Taffy was busy,” Jemma says before any of the more irritable parties have a chance to comment. She seems mostly calmed down by now, although the empty packets of crisps in the bin beside her suggest this was hard-earned.

“Anyhow, I didn’t see anybody else coming up with any ideas,” snipes Fitz, starting the wipe.

“Fine, fine,” mutters Isabelle, and turns on her handler-self, complete with bland smile, as Foxtrot wakes up.

“Hello,” Foxtrot says. “Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while,” Fitz says.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.”

Foxtrot looks up and turns her smile on Isabelle, clearly expecting direction. “Hello,” she says again.

“Hello, Foxtrot,” says Isabelle. “Would you like to go for a swim, maybe?”

“I enjoy swimming,” Foxtrot announces, letting Isabelle lead her out of the lab.

“So,” Melinda says, turning to look at Phil and Fitz, “let’s debrief. Since that was only mildly a disaster.”

 

* * *

 

“Everything seems in good order,” Dr. Simmons declares, nodding at Tango with a smile. “You were very lucky tonight, I’d say.”

“Was I?” Tango asks. (Hunter, in the doorway, is just thankful that the impression left by Taffy was wiped away with the rest of the night’s events.)

“Yes,” Dr. Simmons says. “You and Charlie could have been hurt, but you weren’t. That’s lucky.”

“We had friends to help us,” Tango says. “Friends help each other out.”

Hunter sees Mack and Charlie arriving in the doorway and he says, “That’s right. Now, say thank you and you can go swim or...something.”

“Thank you and you can go swim or...something,” Tango says with a smile, following Hunter out.

In the split second where Jemma doesn’t have to be Dr. Simmons, she allows herself a little smile. Then Charlie enters, and it’s back to business. “How are you, Charlie?” she asks.

“I’m well,” says Charlie, smiling. “How are you, Dr. Simmons?”

“I’m also well,” Dr. Simmons says, but she doesn’t seem entirely convinced. “Today has been very busy for all of us.”

Charlie nods. “Busy days are fun,” she says. “Being busy sometimes helps me be my best.”

“Yes,” Dr. Simmons agrees. She doesn’t seem her best. “Are you hurt anywhere, Charlie?”

“No,” says Charlie, sitting on the examination table. “I don’t hurt anywhere.”

“That’s good,” Dr. Simmons says. “May I look you over anyway? I want to be sure.”

“Yes,” says Charlie. “Seeing you after my treatments helps me be my best.”

Dr. Simmons smiles faintly, but not with her whole face. “That’s what we want,” she murmurs, starting to examine Charlie’s limbs one by one. “Being your best.”

Charlie is quiet for a minute, and then she says, “You’re sad. Why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad,” Dr. Simmons says, too quickly for it to be true.

“You look sad,” replies Charlie.

And how, really, can Dr. Simmons - can _Jemma_ \- explain this? Yes, she’s feeling a bit melancholy, both because recent events were nervewracking and she was very concerned for Charlie and Tango and because if what Fitz said was true, if someone out there in the world was able to perform a remote wipe without their realizing it was going to happen, that means that there’s someone out there in the world whose knowledge of such matters is as advanced as Fitz’s, which straightaway rules out most people, even most other Dollhouse programmers around the world, but it _wouldn’t_ rule out someone who had access to Fitz’s brain, like - but he’s gone, he was taken care of, there’s no reason to think that he -

“It was upsetting,” Dr. Simmons concedes. “You and Tango were in a - a difficult situation, and the rest of us were trying to help you, but everyone was getting very cross at each other.” That’s easy to explain, even if it’s only a fraction of truth. “I don’t enjoy arguments.”

“I don’t either,” says Charlie. “Would you like a hug? Hugs help people feel better. We’re friends, and friends help each other out.”

Dr. Simmons blinks. She knows she should say no, but then that would hurt Charlie’s feelings, and it’s more important not to do that than to hold onto her professional dignity (never mind that either outcome will be forgotten in no time - the impression might remain). “A hug would be very nice, thank you, Charlie,” she says softly.

Charlie sits up and puts her arms around Dr. Simmons gently. “Do you feel better now?” she asks, still holding onto her.

“Yes,” Dr. Simmons says, with a smile in her voice. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

“Wait,” Fitz says, narrowing his eyes. “You’re telling me that not only is Yankee still alive, we don’t even know where he _is_?”

Melinda and Phil exchange guilty looks.


	5. we are the daughters, we are the damned and doomed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being alerted to a potentially dangerous situation that the law cannot handle by itself, the Dollhouse decides to send Charlie on a very unusual engagement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've seen the show, this is sort of a riff on 1x05 "True Believer," with the creepy cult. Except with Inhumans, because they too are a creepy cult. (#savecrystalamaquelin2k18)
> 
> If you haven't, CONTENT WARNINGS: cult/religious fanaticism, implied offscreen rape, attempted assault, brief violence (slapping), general creepiness.
> 
> This isn't meant specifically as an attack on Christianity in general, just, one of us grew up fundiegelical and some of this is not too far off of what actually happens in similar communities.
> 
> Charlie (Cherish): Daisy  
> Romeo (Officer Fletcher): Trip  
> Delta (Sergeant Lennox): Akela  
> Tango: Bobbi  
> Foxtrot: Kara

Mason is just at the front counter straightening things and humming along to the radio when he sees _them_ coming. Great. They pull up in their stupid renovated schoolbus (where did they even get that?) and start piling out with stupid smiles on their faces, like they were told if they just walk around smiling all the time nobody is going to notice the fact that they’re a freaking cult.

They totally are, he knows. They have a sketchy-ass walled compound you can see from I-405, and they only come to town like once or twice a month. They always travel in a pack. And Christ knows what they actually _do_ there. Mason’s best friend’s sister claims she bought soap from one of them once, so they might make crafts, but then again his cousin’s boyfriend says he was biking one of the back roads near the compound one time and heard what he said sounded like “twenty women having orgrasms at the same time,” so they might just be having weird cult sex.

Looking at these people, Mason’s going to go ahead and bet on that one.

“Welcome in,” he says when the group files in, and a few of them turn toward him and give friendly nods. (They probably won’t actually say anything to him since he’s such a townie heathen or whatever.) “Can I help you find anything?”

“We have an order to pick up,” says the guy who seems to be the leader. He can’t be more than thirty, but he carries himself like he thinks he deserves all of the attention in the world. He also definitely doesn’t sound like he’s from around here, although where he _is_ from is a complete mystery.

“Oh, let me just go grab that out of the back,” Mason says. “What’s the name on it?”

“It’ll be under Boltagon,” the leader says, sounding exasperated that this wasn’t already obvious. Which is ridiculous. For one, this isn’t even Mason’s usual shift, and for another, you don’t go remembering every single person’s name all the time. That’d be nuts.

“Cool,” Mason mumbles, ducking into the back room and emerging with a couple of boxes’ worth of groceries. (All packed up already, so he can’t spy on what they’re buying, dammit.) “This should be it, I think.”

The leader nods, affecting what’s possibly the most disdainful expression ever, and then says, “Who has the wallet, then?”

A blonde girl who honestly could be anywhere between sixteen and twenty-six steps out of the cluster (why they all needed to come in when only two of them were involved in the transaction is another mystery) and starts pulling bills out of an honest-to-god macrame change purse. “Sorry,” she whispers as she passes Mason the money.

A couple of the guys come to get the boxes and, without any ceremony, their leader ushers everyone out of the store. He doesn’t even bother to respond when Mason tells him (unenthusiastically, but still) to have a good day.

He’s counting the dollar bills and putting them in the till when he sees one piece of paper that’s not like the rest. It’s just a white scrap of paper tucked between a couple of twenties, and all it says on it is HELP ME.

Shit.

 

* * *

 

“We have to do _something_ ,” Phil insists. “I know we don’t have much information, but it’s clear that whoever this Maximus guy is, he’s up to no good.”

“Do we?” Fitz asks, tilting his head. “I mean, this is really quite a jump from our usual engagement.”

“My friend with the LAPD said they can’t do anything because there’s no concrete proof of illegality,” says Phil, shaking his head. “But he said the witness described the girl as young, maybe even a teenager...I hate to think of anything bad happening to her, or anyone else who might be feeling trapped there.”

“You’re getting overly sentimental,” says Melinda. “She’s young, but she’s not a child. Probably.”

“Still,” Phil says. “And we don’t know if there are actual children, either. They probably wouldn’t bring the children out into the regular world.”

Fitz is quiet for a moment. “I have been working on a new form of tech that might be useful for this. For surveillance, anyway.”

Phil perks up. “Oh?”

“Basically, it overwrites the optic nerve and turns the human eye into a camera,” Fitz says, speaking a bit slowly, as if he thinks Phil’s a bit dim (he does). “If we send one of the Dolls equipped with this, we’d have a simple method of gathering evidence as well as someone on the ground, as it were, in case things go south.”

Melinda seems skeptical. “Sounds dangerous.”

“It’s not!” Fitz insisted. “Well. Not _terribly_. I’m fairly sure we can fix the nerve afterwards. I haven’t actually tried it on a human test subject, mind.”

Jemma, who’s been sat very primly on the sofa beside Fitz just listening to all of this because really, it’s not her place, she just came to this meeting because she didn’t have anything else that needed doing and Fitz invited her along, can’t help but roll her eyes. “The only reason you haven’t done that is that I told you you shouldn’t without getting permission,” she sighs.

Fitz makes a face at her and then looks hopefully at Phil and Melinda. “I really do think it’s well-suited for this.”

Phil looks a bit uncertain, but finally nods. “I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

“You had better tell them about the _side-effects_ ,” Jemma says warningly.

Pouting, Fitz says, “I _would_ have,” before adding, “Well, rewiring the optic nerve to this camera means that while it’s in use, the Doll will technically be...blind.”

“What,” Melinda deadpans. “You’re not serious.”

“Like I said, I can fix it once we bring them back to the House!”

Phil presses his lips together. “And there’s absolutely no way around this?”

“No, of course not,” sighs Fitz, starting to get exasperated. “Look, it’s fine, I can make the imprint for a blind person, they’ll never know the difference! Besides, these religious types love taking in the downtrodden and disabled and what have you.”

“ _Fitz_ ,” Jemma hisses. “That’s awful to say.”

“It might be, but I’m not wrong!” he protests.

There’s a tense silence for a moment before Melinda coughs and says, “So, who are you proposing we use for this...experiment?”

 

* * *

 

“You want to do _what_ to Charlie?”

“Calm down,” Fitz says, rubbing his temple. “Like I’ve told you, it’s a very simple procedure and we can fix it just as soon as she gets back-”

“I am calm,” Mack says stonily. “But I’m damn unhappy about you using my Doll, _again_ , for your crazy experiments. You have twenty five others, why is Charlie the one that always ends up doing these weird engagements?”

“She’s our best,” Fitz replies. “Highly adaptable, resilient, and, well, she has the sort of face that people notice. No matter how batshit these people are, they won’t turn away a girl who looks like her.”

Mack grumbles a little to himself, so Jemma jumps in to say, “We’ll really be taking every precaution. And you’ll obviously be monitoring the camera feed, and you’ll have audio as always, so if anything seems to be going wrong you can extract her.” She doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic about this plan, but what safety concerns she can personally account for or turn over to Mack so he can account for them himself are easy to reassure him of.

Mack makes a sort of growl-sigh noise and shakes his head. “It’s your call, I guess, sir,” he says, looking at Phil. “I’ll be with her either way, of course.”

Phil nods. “Thank you. We’ll let you know when we have a better idea of the timeline for this.”

Mack doesn’t respond, just gets up and leaves.

 

* * *

 

“They wouldn’t really put her in danger,” Elena murmurs, nestling into Mack. They’re curled up on one of the lounge couches (luckily, none of the other handlers are in there right now) and Elena’s doing her best to comfort him after the meeting with Phil and the others. “She’s their number one, why would they want to hurt her?”

“I know,” sighs Mack. “I’m just...starting to wish she wasn’t so popular so they’d leave her alone for awhile.”

Elena snickers. “Are you sure this isn’t just because you want a break?”

“No!” Mack protests, but he can’t help but grin. “Maybe a little, but I’m really not sure this is such a good idea.”

“I’m not either,” Elena says, shaking her head. “But we cannot do anything about it, so it won’t help to worry.” She kisses him. “Charlie will be alright. You must have faith.”

“Oh, now you’re lecturing _me_ about faith,” he says playfully. “How the tables have turned.”

“No turning tables,” she replies with a smirk. “I had an idea. What if we asked them to program Delta and maybe another Doll as cops and had them waiting in case something bad happened? Would that help?”

“Maybe.” Mack runs a hand through her hair. “Thank you.”

“Besides, that would mean I was there with you too,” Elena points out.

“Yeah,” says Mack, starting to look a little less nervous. “That’d be good.”

“I will talk to them,” promises Elena, closing her eyes and smiling when Mack strokes her hair again. “In a few minutes.”

 

* * *

 

“Have you ever felt like God was calling you somewhere?”

The question catches Mack off guard. He’s doing his best to keep up the charade of being a trucker who’s just picked up a blind girl in need of a ride. But it’s hard, because he _hates_ this and he just wants to take Charlie away from this terrible idea. “Uh,” he says quickly. “I’ve felt like God was speaking to me before, but not like that.”

“I think He’s telling me to go meet someone,” says Charlie. Cherish. (That’s the dumb name Fitz came up with for this imprint.) “Up in the mountains, that’s where I’m supposed to meet them.”

“Yeah?” Mack says, trying not to sound uneasy. “You sure about this? I don’t know if I feel comfortable leaving...someone...like you alone.”

“Why?” Cherish asks with a giggle. “Because I’m blind? I know how to get around.”

“No,” Mack says, chuckling despite himself. “Because you’re a pretty girl and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“I’ll be alright,” Cherish says firmly. “The Lord will look after me. I trust in Him.”

Mack makes a sort of _harrumph_ noise but doesn’t reply.

A few hours later, he drops her off, his heart in his throat as he watches her go. “You be careful, okay?” he calls.

“I will,” she says with a wave. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Thank you, Mr. Mackenzie.”

“It’s Mack,” he says, as he’s reminded her half a dozen times during the drive. He shakes his head as he turns the truck around to head back to the rendez-vous point. At least Elena’s there waiting for him.

Meanwhile, Cherish walks into the woods, never tripping over a single tree root or stone. She uses her cane to navigate, careful and methodical. She keeps walking until she hears voices ahead, and then calls, “Hello? Hello?”

More than a few people have gathered, alerted by the sound of someone on the path. It’s not that there are any alarms or anything, they don’t need those, but typically nobody comes here, so it’s strange, obvious, and more than a little unnerving.

But, Crystal thinks, that might just be that she finds everything a little unnerving lately. A young, pretty woman just sauntering into the compound is almost _certainly_ here for… something bad. Still, nobody else seems to be willing to speak to her first, and she doubts that she’ll get in trouble for doing (so-called benefits of her so-called privileged position), so she steps out of the bunch and says, “Hello. Are you lost?”

“No,” Cherish says, smiling. “I’m looking for someone. I had a dream where God told me to go into the mountains and look for a town full of people, and a man with a dark beard who spoke with the voice of God.”

Crystal has to work not to make a face at that, both because she doesn’t want to alarm any of the others and because she doesn’t want to offend this new person. But then she looks down and notices the woman’s… cane? “How did you get here?” she asks warily, trying to put it all together as best she can.

“The Lord worked through many kind people to bring me here,” Cherish says, but before she can continue a slight and yet imposing man pushes through the crowd noisily.

“Who has found us here?” he asks, his accent untraceable.

“My name is Cherish Daughtry,” she says, smiling. “I believe God sent me to you.”

He scoffs. “Nobody comes here,” he says. “We are all but cut off from modern civilization. How do we know to trust you?” He nods at her cane. “How do I know you’re even truly blind?”

Crystal gasps indignantly (you’re not supposed to say things like that, even she knows that) but luckily there are enough murmurs and whispers going around the crowd that it goes unnoticed.

“In the dream, you had me touch your face so that I would be able to find you,” Cherish says. “I’ll know it’s you.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he says, but he moves closer.

“You must have faith, Maximus,” Cherish says, turning to face him. “I am meant to be here with you.”

Maximus raises an eyebrow, though he knows she won’t know that. “Very well,” he says. “You may touch my face.” He doesn’t take her hand, though.

Cherish reaches up to run her fingers gently over his face. “It’s you,” she murmurs. “You were in my dream, Maximus Boltagon.”

“And what did I say to you, Cherish Daughtry?”

“You told me to come and find you in the mountains. You said that God was leading me here to be with you, to grow closer to Him.”

“You will do that,” he agrees, just soft enough that it seems personal. “Yes, I think we are in no position to deny the will of God. Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling. “It sounds like a beautiful place.”

The crowd begins to applaud lightly, and after a moment of that Maximus turns back to look at them. “Crystal,” he says, too jovially to be sincere, “since you’ve already been making friends, you can give Cherish a tour and get her acquainted with everyone.” It’s not a request.

“Of course,” Crystal murmurs, coming to Cherish’s side. “May I take your arm?”

“Yes,” says Cherish, offering it. “Thank you. It’s very nice to meet you, Crystal.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Crystal says, but she’s trying to shake a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

 

* * *

 

It’s a pretty boring day so far. Fitz has messed around with a few new imprints, just tweaking things here and there (well, it _would_ be funny if one of the Dolls wanted to have a postcoital debate about which _Star Trek_ is best, he doesn’t care what Jemma says), but there isn’t much going on. He spins his chair around to grab a juice box and happens to catch a glimpse of the shower monitors.

He doesn’t usually look at those, because, well. Even if it is just meant to be a security measure, he feels weird about seeing the Dolls naked. Right now Foxtrot is in the middle of a shower, and Tango has just arrived and is taking off her towel. He sort of lets his eyes stop on that monitor for a second, mostly out of laziness.

Everything seems normal - Foxtrot’s washing her hair, and Tango just stands there watching Foxtrot for a moment before starting to wash her arms. Foxtrot smiles at her, and Tango smiles back. After a couple of minutes, Foxtrot rinses out her hair, says goodbye to Tango, and then leaves. By this point Tango has progressed to washing down her body, and then she…

“Oh god!” yelps Fitz, putting a hand in front of the monitor once he figures out what, exactly, Tango seems to be doing. He didn’t even really know girls _did_ that, let alone Dolls…

He picks up the inter-office phone and frantically presses the button for Jemma’s office. “Jemma,” he says, when she picks up, “get up here, I...I saw something we need to talk about.”

 

* * *

 

“So this is the crafting house,” Crystal says, leading Cherish into a building that smells vaguely of lavender. “The women make our livelihoods here, soaps and knitwear and paper and… such.”

“That sounds nice,” Cherish says. “And what do the men do?”

Crystal frowns and hopes Cherish can’t somehow tell. “Well,” she says carefully, “they build our buildings, they tend to the bus and the horses. They find our food, though we prepare all but the meat - that’s left to the men too old to hunt.” She pauses before adding, “They, a few of them anyway, are responsible for our relationship to the outside world.”

“I see.” Cherish thinks a moment. “So everyone has a job to do. A purpose.”

“Yes,” Crystal says. Can the new girl sense her reticence? She hopes not. “We all… we all do have our roles to play. It’s preordained.”

“I feel like I’ve been searching for a purpose all my life,” muses Cherish. “Perhaps that’s why the Lord led me here. What is your role here?”

“Perhaps,” Crystal echoes. And then she has to sigh, just a little. The question is unsurprising, but it stings. “Well, I help tend the gardens, I make candles, I help the littlest girls.” _Protect_ them is more accurate, as of late. “My older sister was beloved of Maximus’ brother, and as such he considers me…” Family is the wrong word, but so is special. And she is hardly beloved of _him_. “Close. He holds me close.”

“Was?” Cherish frowns. “I don’t mean to pry, but did something happen to your sister?”

“Oh, she’s fine,” Crystal hurries to say. “Maximus’ brother is the one who’s not with us anymore. He is with God now.” It’s what she’s been trained to say, and that’s obvious by her tone.

“Oh,” replies Cherish. “I’m sorry.” She pauses. “You don’t seem to like Maximus very much.”

“It’s not that,” Crystal exclaims (although it is). “I simply didn’t want to make it sound like, like he treats me differently or favors me unduly. It’s not true, and I wouldn’t want to brag or make it sound as if we were like that here.” Hopefully that covers up her hesitance.

“Okay,” Cherish says. “I just meant that you sounded resentful of him. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Crystal bites her lip. “It’s complicated,” she says, praying that will be the end of that. “What do you think you might like to do with us? Cooking, or making things, or?”

“I’m not sure,” says Cherish with a little laugh. “I don’t think I should be entrusted with the cooking. I suppose I want to be useful in any way I can be. The Lord will show me the best place for my skills.”

“Yes,” Crystal agrees, matching the laugh. “Perhaps you could help with the children. There is so much they need to learn.”

Cherish beams. “I think I’d like that. Do you like children? I do, I think.”

“I do,” Crystal says. “I like helping them discover who they’re meant to be and what makes them truly joyous.” And every minute she’s with them, they’re not with someone worse.

“Maybe we’ll get to work together,” says Cherish. “I’d like that too. I like you, if it isn’t too bold to say.”

“No, it’s not,” Crystal promises. “I like you too. I’m glad to have you as, perhaps, a friend.”

“Friends are very important. You can help each other in your walk with God.”

“Yes,” Crystal murmurs. “I should finish the tour, shouldn’t I?” She laughs, although it’s not really funny, and takes Cherish’s arm once more to lead her out. “The kitchen and dining room are in the main house, but the men prepare some of the meat in the little building on our right. And to the left is, ah, the plenteous house.”

Cherish’s mouth quirks. “The what?”

“How old are you?” Crystal asks softly.

“Nineteen,” Cherish replies. “Why do you ask?”

“It means that you’re old enough to visit the plenteous house,” Crystal says, trying to keep the sadness out of her voice. “When you are more settled here, perhaps, there will be a ceremony for you, making you truly a bride of God, and all brides serve their husbands - or in this case, His surrogates, the men here.”

Cherish tilts her head. “You mean sexually?”

Crystal nods for a moment before she realizes how useless that is. “Our bodies are tools of God,” she says. “If we’re lucky, He will bless us.”

“Oh, I see,” Cherish says. “So have you had this...ceremony?”

“I turned nineteen half a year ago,” Crystal explains, “and had my ceremony shortly after.”

Cherish, sensing Crystal would rather not speak of this further, smiles and says, “Well, do you have anything else you want to show me?”

 

* * *

 

“ _Jesus,_ ” Mack mutters. “I can’t believe this.”

Elena is crossing herself and muttering curses in Spanish. “This man is not of God, that is for certain.”

“Men are bad, news at ten,” Victoria sighs, taking an angry sip of water before she nods at Mack and then cop-Romeo. “No offense, Mack. No offense, Officer Fletcher.”

Mack sighs. “None taken. I hate this.” He glances balefully over at Melinda. “How long exactly are we keeping her in that nuthouse?”

“We need evidence of abuse,” says Melinda. “Indisputable evidence. You know how the justice system treats victims.”

“I do.” Mack rubs his temples. “I just worry about her, you know.”

“We do.” Elena places a hand on his shoulder. “We won’t let any harm come to her, you know that.”

“Fletcher and I have worked multiple stings like this, sir,” says Sergeant Lennox, smiling at him in a vaguely reassuring way. “We know exactly when to step in.” She’s not exactly warm, but she exudes an air of quiet confidence.

Mack shakes his head. Fitz’s programming is impeccable, he knows, but he’s really not comfortable trusting the safety of his Active to what basically amounts to luck and timing. “Thanks, sergeant,” he sighs. “I’m just...not as used to this kind of thing as I should be.”

“It’s understandable.” Officer Fletcher smiles at him. “You’ve worked with her for months now, haven’t you? From what Mr. Coulson was saying, the bond between Actives and their handlers is practically unbreakable.”

“Yeah,” agrees Mack with a nod. Elena leans against him, and he busies himself with running his hand through her hair. It isn’t enough to fully distract him, but it’s something anyway.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t see what you’re so upset about, Fitz,” Jemma sighs, folding her arms.

“Well, it’s just, I was minding my own damn business, when I happened to, and they were, and she was-” Fitz takes a deep breath. “It’s not _normal,_ Jemma!”

“What, masturbation?” Jemma says, somehow missing (or seeming to miss) the way that the word makes him twitch. “It is, though. Even children do that sometimes, some of them.”

Fitz scrunches up his nose in a grimace. “Alright, but I’m talking about Dolls here. They’re not supposed to be able to do... _any_ of that! They don’t get erections and they don’t have sexual reactions while in Dollstate! It’s very specific!”

“It’s not like she followed through,” she points out. “It’s possible she was just taking a long time to wash herself, for goodness’ sake.”

“No, she was definitely...enjoying herself...oh god.” Fitz puts his head in his hands. “I don’t even like talking about this. But it’s troubling behavior and we need to figure out how to curb it before it gets worse.”

“Enjoying herself,” Jemma repeats, slightly dumbfounded.

“Yes! You know…” Fitz is bright red now, and making a series of flailing gestures with his hands. “She was...ah...buttering her muffin?”

“Good _grief_ ,” Jemma mutters. “You must have tried it at least once, you don’t have to be so bloody awkward about it.”

“ _Jemma!_ ” he yelps, horrified. “We weren’t talking about me, we were talking about the Actives!”

“What?” she retorts. “You’ve done it, I’ve done it, Tango just _barely_ did it. I would think there are more important things to worry about.”

“ _Please stop talking about it,_ ” he groans, his head buried in his hands. “Anyway, I suppose I’ll need to wipe her again. We really can’t have this going on.”

“What did it hurt?” she asks. “What does it hurt, generally?”

“Nothing!” he says, lifting his head but resolutely not looking her in the eyes. “It’s just...we don’t want them to do that, that’s all!”

“We, really?” Jemma asks. “Was there a memo I missed? Did you and Coulson have a sit-down lunch to discuss the Dolls’ capacity for self-exploration, or is it just your own hang-up?”

Fitz groans. “Look, I’d be saying the same thing if they were boys too, alright? They’re not supposed to want to do...things like that! And I don’t know why you’re defending them, you’re not supposed to!”

“I told you, it’s practically involuntary,” she retorts, rolling her eyes. “Besides, _supposed_ to? Because I’m always meant to take your side, I suppose? I’m not defending them per se, I’m just saying it’s really not the catastrophe you’re making it out to be.”

Rubbing his temples, Fitz shakes his head and sighs. “Look, I’m sorry I brought it up, alright? I’ll just, just bring Tango in for a quick rewipe, and let’s just forget the whole thing.”

“That chair isn’t a solution for everything,” Jemma says, though she’s already sounding less argumentative. “We should talk to them first, Tango and Foxtrot both, and see if we’re noticing any lingering behavioral changes. I expect Tango doesn’t even remember it.”

“Fine,” grumbles Fitz. “Go get Tango, will you?” His tone is just the slightest bit sarcastic.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks very much for that fine reading, Bronaja,” says Maximus, smiling indulgently at the young man. Bronaja smiles back at him, still seeming a bit nervous. “Many of us have heard the story of the woman who gave her last two copper coins to Christ. I’d like to hear some interpretations.” He glances over at Cherish, who’s sitting next to Crystal. “Cherish?”

“I think it’s a story about faith,” says Cherish. “Faith that the Lord will provide and bless your offering. And generosity even when it’s difficult. We are to give all of ourselves for the good of the Lord.”

Maximus nods thoughtfully. “Indeed,” he says, his gaze falling on Crystal for a moment. “Can you think of an example of such a difficult generosity?”

Cherish pauses a moment before replying, “Perhaps if we were to give some of our crops away to the non-believers who need them? That might also witness to them.”

“There is little point trying to persuade the heathens around us,” Maximus says patronizingly.

“I disagree,” Cherish says politely. “I think it could be very beneficial to reach out to them, and try to convince some of them to see things the way we see them. Wouldn’t it be better to try to bring some of them into the light with us?”

“Perhaps.” Maximus’ tone is cool. “But wouldn’t that open some of us, the ones whose faith is perhaps weaker, to outside influences? My concern is that some may be seduced away by the temptations of the world. Better to remain amongst ourselves, so that those of us with unshakeable faith may protect and encourage the weak.”

“Best not to argue,” Crystal whispers.

Cherish tilts her head. “But then why not at least send out some of those who are strongest in faith? Surely they can survive the temptations. You are counting yourself amongst the strongest, aren’t you?” She doesn’t sound flippant or challenging, just curious.

Maximus narrows his eyes. “I see that your new friend wasn’t clear about the order of things here,” he says, again staring at Crystal. It’s as much a threat to her as to Cherish. “Leadership decisions are best left to the leaders.”

Cherish frowns, beginning to stand up. “I understand that,” she says, “but I thought we were all beloved and important in the eyes of God. What kind of leader doesn’t want input from those he leads? I think that makes for a cowardly leader.”

He lets out a sound somewhere between a growl and a hiss as he crosses the distance between them and slaps her face. “Do I have a rebel on my hands?” he asks in a low voice.

There’s a series of horrified gasps from those close enough to see what happened, and none are louder than Crystal’s, who looks to be three seconds from jumping to Cherish’s defense.

Cherish blinks, clearly stunned. She’s quiet for a very long moment, before saying, “I...I can see you, Maximus.” She stares him right in the eyes. “My sight has returned.”

 

* * *

 

“ _What happened?_ ” growls Mack, clenching his fist and staring at the monitors. “Why can’t we see anything?”

“He hit her,” Elena says, shocked. “He hit her and broke the camera.”

“That’s not supposed to happen, is it?” asks Officer Fletcher, raising an eyebrow.

“We sure as hell weren’t briefed on that possibility,” Victoria says through gritted teeth.

Melinda shushes them. “We can still hear, at least,” she points out. “I think all it did was shut off the visual somehow.”

“I don’t like this,” Mack says. “Who knows what else that crazy bastard is gonna do.”

“Should we extract her?” Elena asks the officers.

“Not yet,” says Sergeant Lennox. “Wait a moment.”

 

* * *

 

Cherish glances around at the stunned faces in the crowd around her, blinking as she’s overwhelmed by sunlight for the first time in...well, nearly a lifetime. She shades her eyes and says, awed, “The Lord has cured me through Maximus. It’s a miracle.”

“It is,” Crystal murmurs, though she sounds more unsure.

Cherish turns back to Maximus. “Did you know that would happen? Is that why you laid hands on me?”

Maximus prays that she won’t be able to decipher his flustered expression as he says, none too cagily, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“He does.” Cherish nods. “Thank you for this gift. You are truly a man of God.”

“You’re welcome, sister,” Maximus says, reaching to take her hand.

That’s too much for Crystal, and she jumps up to grab Cherish’s other hand in a way that’s protective but masquerading as simply affectionate and excited. “I should show you our home anew,” she suggests.

Cherish smiles. “Yes, I’d like that.” She looks at Maximus. “May we be excused?”

“For a little while,” he says. “We will need some time to prepare the plenteous house for this evening’s activities.”

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Foxtrot,” Dr. Simmons says sweetly, guiding Foxtrot over to the examining table.

“Hello, Dr. Simmons,” Foxtrot replies, tilting her head. “I am not injured.”

“No, no, I know,” Dr. Simmons assures. “Dr. Fitz and I just wanted to speak to you.” She looks pointedly at Fitz, hoping he’ll think of a polite way to begin this.

Fitz coughs. He’s in _way_ over his head. “Ah,” he says, stalling a bit, “Foxtrot, we wanted to see how you’re...settling in. How do you like it here?”

“It’s very nice,” Foxtrot declares, smiling. “I go swimming and paint and do yoga. I get to see my friends. They’re all very nice.”

“Are there any friends that you, er, especially like?” asks Fitz, trying for casual.

Foxtrot frowns a little, clearly not sure what he actually means by that. “I like all of my friends,” she says. “They help me be my best.”

Dr. Simmons presses her lips together. “That’s important,” she says.

Fitz sighs and mutters something under his breath before giving Foxtrot the fakest smile and saying, “What about Tango, what do you think about her?”

“I like Tango,” Foxtrot says quickly, and she’s suddenly smiling again. “She’s very nice. I enjoy doing activities with her.”

“What kind of activities?” Fitz asks, ignoring Jemma’s tiny noise of protest.

“All of them?” Foxtrot says, now very obviously confused. “Sometimes we sit together for meals.”

Dr. Simmons is smiling again too, and she says, “I’m glad you have good friends like that.”

“I’m glad too,” Foxtrot says.

“But do you have any special feelings about her?” Fitz presses.

“What makes a feeling special?” Foxtrot asks. “I sit with Charlie and India and Bravo and Romeo and Delta too. I like them too.”

“I think he’s wondering if you have a _best_ friend,” Dr. Simmons suggests, though she looks annoyed with Fitz and nudges him.

“Wouldn’t having a best friend hurt someone else’s feelings?” Foxtrot asks. “It’s not like having a favorite color, colors don’t have feelings.” She smiles proudly at Fitz, because he’s the one who taught her that (all of five hours ago, it’s a wonder she still remembers).

Fitz sort of laughs, but not like he really finds it funny. He really, _really_ wants to be done with all this. “That’s right,” he says, trying for encouraging. “Colors don’t have feelings. People do. It’s, it’s a good point. Um, thanks for talking with us, Foxtrot, you can go now. Dr. Simmons will give you a lollipop.” He glances expectantly at Jemma.

Dr. Simmons turns to her desk for the jar of lollipops and offers it to Foxtrot. “Perhaps you could go to art class now,” she suggests, because lollipops don’t _really_ count as eating that you shouldn’t do before swimming but it’s good not to say anything that might let them fall into that habit.

“Art class is nice,” Foxtrot agrees, selecting a red lollipop. “Good-bye, Dr. Simmons, good-bye, Dr. Fitz.” And with that she’s on her way out of the office.

“I’m telling you,” Jemma whispers to Fitz, “it’s nothing.”

“Five minutes of talking won’t do anything,” argues Fitz. “And they won’t remember it anyway. They’re like goldfish.”

“What was that about the colors, then?” she asks, smirking.

Fitz shrugs. “Well, she won’t remember that tomorrow anyway. Their short-term memory doesn’t last more than a day or two except for the important things, that’s by design.”

“Call for Tango,” she says with a little roll of her eyes.

“Alright, alright,” he says, turning on the intercom.

Once Tango’s arrived, Fitz says, “Hello, Tango. We just have a couple of questions for you.”

Tango gets comfortable on the examination table and replies, “Hello. I don't know why we are in the doctor’s office. I am not injured.”

This makes Dr. Simmons smile. “We know,” she says. “Ah, Dr. Fitz?” She sounds a little strange using the title for him, but it’s good practice to maintain some formality with the Dolls.

“How do you feel about Foxtrot?” Fitz asks.

“I like Foxtrot,” Tango says, blinking. “She’s very nice.”

“But do you have any special feelings about her?” he adds. “Do you, uh, get...butterflies in your stomach?” He realizes the instant he says it that this is a terrible approach, but he can’t unsay it, so oh well.

“How would butterflies get in my stomach?” Tango asks. “You don’t eat butterflies.”

“Yes,” sighs Fitz. “I mean do you, do you feel...do you get excited when you see her?”

“She’s my friend,” Tango says.

Dr. Simmons raises an eyebrow. “That’s important,” she says, just like she said to Foxtrot.

“Yes,” Tango agrees. “I like to sit by her.”

“I see,” Fitz says. “Do you also like to stand by her? In the shower, maybe?” He’s using the sort of tone that would be leading if he were talking to anyone but a Doll.

“I stood by Foxtrot in the shower today,” Tango says. “I wanted to say hello to her. I had to take a shower after I went swimming.”

“Good,” Fitz says. “That’s good. Ah, we noticed something on the monitors while you were showering.” He suddenly flushes and looks over at Jemma, hoping she’ll be able to explain it.

“You seemed to be touching yourself,” says Dr. Simmons.

“Yes,” Tango replies, “how could I wash myself without touching myself?”

Dr. Simmons shoots Fitz a look. “In a private place,” she says, part to spare Fitz the embarrassment and part because she honestly can’t remember whether Dolls, as a rule, know the word “vagina.”

“The shower is private,” Tango agrees. “Washing is something we do in private.”

“Thank you, Tango,” Dr. Simmons says, nodding as if that says it all.

“You’re right,” says Fitz, who is starting to feel as if this is all getting out of hand very quickly. “But, ah, this was in...a particular place...on your body...between your...legs?”

“Yes,” Tango says. “I always wash there, especially after I go in the pool. The water in the pool is funny. I feel clean after I wash it off.”

Fitz nods. “Um, but you were...you weren’t using a washcloth, just your fingers. Do you do that often?”

“The soap was on my fingers,” Tango says. “I didn’t wash anywhere with a washcloth today.”

Exasperated, Fitz glances at Jemma. “Help,” he hisses.

Dr. Simmons shrugs. “Were you thinking about anything while you washed?” she asks.

Tango frowns. “Being clean?”

“There you go,” Dr. Simmons says, not really to Tango at all, but then she looks back at Tango and says, “Did it feel nice to wash yourself there?”

“It feels nice to wash myself everywhere,” Tango says, befuddled. “I enjoy being clean. It helps me be my best.”

“Alright,” says Fitz, shaking his head. It’s becoming very clear that, whatever else was going on, Tango won’t be at all helpful after all. “Well, just be careful, alright? Especially when you wash down...there…” He trials off awkwardly. “Thank you for talking with us, Tango. Dr. Simmons will give you a lollipop and you can go.”

 

* * *

 

“Ah, Cherish,” Maximus says grandly when she and Crystal enter the plenteous house. “I believe you will enjoy this, since you’re so interested in bringing souls to our light.”

Most of the adult men in the group and at least an even amount of adult women are sitting on benches along the walls. Their expressions are varied. Some of the men, Crystal notices with some despair, have already begun to remove their shirts.

Cherish looks sort of startled. “I...I don’t see what this has to do with what we were talking about,” she says, eyes wide.

“The people outside of our walls are corrupt already,” Maximus says. “If they weren’t, people would show up like you did every day to heed the call. This means the only way we create new believers is the natural way.”

Crystal winces. “Cherish is so new to us,” she mumbles.

“And clearly the Lord has decreed that great things happen when I touch her,” Maximus retorts.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this,” says Cherish. “Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of...ceremony first? Crystal mentioned that.”

“Oh, we’ll do the ceremony,” Maximus says. “There wouldn’t be so many people here if they were not here to witness your joy.”

“She hasn’t had time to prepare,” Crystal insists, obviously desperate. “Shouldn’t -”

“Shouldn’t she do what I say?” Maximus growls, coming to stand uncomfortably close to Crystal. “Yes, she should, _sister_. I am your king, I speak for our Lord! She said so herself, _didn’t she_?”

“I did say that,” says Cherish, stepping in front of Crystal. “But I don’t think this is what the Lord would want at all. I think it’s just what _you_ want.”

Raising his voice above the low murmurs from the crowd, Maximus asks, “You really see fit to question this? ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.’”

“That was a commandment for the _animals,_ ” Cherish points out, “and not for modern-day believers! I don’t believe you speak for God in this moment, Maximus, I believe you speak only for yourself.”

The low murmurs build to a soft roar as Maximus shouts, “These people have lifted me up as their king and a servant of God! You are just a girl.” His eyes narrow at Crystal as he adds, “A girl who has no doubt been influenced by an ungrateful, faithless _whore_.”

Before anyone else can react to that, Cherish leans forward and punches him in the nose. It’s an inelegant hit, because she hasn’t really punched anyone before, but it connects all the same. “A man who speaks for God would never say such a thing! Nor would he force himself on the unwilling!”

Eyes blazing, Crystal turns to the awed constituents (several of the men have hastily started to rebutton their shirts) and shouts, “Maximus is king of _no one_!”

At this point, several police officers barge in, yelling, “Police! Maximus Boltagon, hands on your head!”

Rather predictably, Maximus doesn’t do that; instead he pulls a matchbox from his pocket, strikes a match, and drops it on the wooden floor. He also shouts something, but it’s entirely incomprehensible amidst the chaotic shouting that breaks out.

“Evacuate the building!” one of the officers shouts at the other two. Then she advances on Maximus, gun trained on him. “Boltagon, on your knees, now!”’

“You can’t _arrest_ me,” Maximus yells. “I am a king, beloved of the Lord!”

“You’re a piece of shit,” growls the officer, lunging at him. They fight for a minute but it’s clear that she’s much more physically capable than he is, and she finally gets him handcuffed and shoves him toward the door. “Make sure everyone else gets out!” she calls to the other officers, who are herding Maximus’ panicked followers out.

Once everyone has evacuated the building, which is indeed starting to burn, none of the followers seem to know exactly what to do. A few women go for buckets of water, but even they’re in a daze; Crystal glances around in a panic for Cherish and sees her talking to another stranger, likely another police officer. “Cherish!” she shouts, hurrying over. “Are you alright?”

Cherish, startled mid-sentence, says, “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Are you alright?” She reaches out like she wants to take Crystal’s hand, then looks uncertain.

Crystal closes the distance between them, grabbing Cherish’s hand decisively. “I think so,” she murmurs. “Did you know…?”

“Know what?” Cherish asks, frowning.

“About the police coming to save us,” Crystal says.

“Oh. No, I had no idea. I don’t know who…” Cherish looks around and then shrugs. “Perhaps the kind soul who brought me to the woods. He seemed concerned for me.”

“I’m very glad he reached out to help, then,” Crystal declares. “But I’m sorry this didn’t turn out to be the place you thought it would be.”

“I’m sorry for you too,” says Cherish, and she looks as if she might cry. “I don’t...I hope you’ll be alright.”

“We’ll make sure the survivors have places to go, Ms. Daughtry,” says the officer Cherish had been talking to, a black man with kind eyes. “Could I just ask you a few more questions?”

“Oh! Yes, I’m sorry, she’s just…” Cherish turns back to Crystal and hugs her fiercely. “We’ll see each other again, I know it,” she says. “It must have been God’s plan to bring us together.”

Crystal nods, clearly trying to hold back tears herself. “It must have been,” she agrees. “God bless you, Cherish.”

“You too,” Cherish whispers. Then, with a small nod, she turns back to the officer. “I’m ready to answer your other questions, Officer Fletcher.”

Once she’s done with the interview, she asks, “May I ask a question?”

“Of course,” Officer Fletcher says.

“How...how did you know where to find us?”

“We’d been aware that there was a suspicious religious cult in this area for awhile,” says Fletcher, “but we weren’t sure exactly where it was and we didn’t want to go on hearsay. Then we got a tip from a nearby convenience store that someone in the group had left a note asking for help, and then we got a tip from a truck driver who had dropped off a girl in this area looking for God. So.”

“Oh,” Cherish says, eyes widening. “Mr. Mackenzie? He was so kind to me. Well, thank you very much, Officer.”

“Actually,” he adds, “that truck driver insisted on hanging around to see if you were okay. He wouldn’t leave. Kind of a pain in my...rear,” he substitutes quickly. “But he seems to be really worried about you.”

Cherish seems surprised, but smiles. “God works in such mysterious ways,” she says, “and He shows Himself in many unexpected places. Where is Mr. Mackenzie?”

“I’ll take you to him,” says Officer Fletcher, “and then I need to interview some of the other survivors. Here’s my card, if you have any other comments about this incident.” He hands her a business card and then escorts her over to where the truck driver is standing, visibly anxious.

“Mr. Mackenzie!” Cherish calls, waving. “Hello!”

He deflates just a little, apparently out of relief. “Cherish,” he says, beaming. “You’re okay!”

“I am!” she says, coming forward to hug him. “And I can see now!”

He blinks. “Oh?”

“It was a miracle,” she says, then turns back to Officer Fletcher. “Thank you again. Oh...can I call you later and ask about how that girl, Crystal, is doing? We’re friends now and I want to make sure she won’t be alone.”

“I can do that,” agrees Fletcher. “Best of luck, Ms. Daughtry.”

“C’mon,” Mack says, guiding Cherish back towards his truck. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

* * *

 

“Once she’s wiped, I’m taking her to my office immediately,” Jemma mutters, arms folded. She, Fitz, and Phil are all standing around the imprint room, waiting for Mack and Charlie to return; this is somewhat unusual, as Fitz can obviously do a wipe by himself, but this is a special circumstance. And after everything, Jemma is very on edge.

“Fine, fine,” says Fitz irritably. “So that didn’t go _exactly_ as planned. I suppose it does need more work. I had no idea it was that sensitive.”

“It does seem like the sort of thing you’d want to be wary of, generally,” Jemma snarks.

“Well, I know that _now,_ ” grumbles Fitz.

Phil glances between the two of them. He’s able to pick up on the animosity, but he has no idea what it’s about. “The most important thing is to make sure that Charlie’s physically alright,” he points out. “I think it was a good experiment, Fitz, but next time we should be sure that it won’t bring physical harm to an Active if it malfunctions.”

“It didn’t,” mutters Fitz, but then he nods and says, “Very well, sir.”

Not too much later, Mack and Charlie arrive back in the house, Charlie looking around wide-eyed. “Hello,” she says when she sees Fitz. “Mr. Mackenzie says I’m here for a treatment.”

“Yes,” says Fitz, relieved. “Come here, Cherish, sit down in this chair.”

While Fitz is taking care of the wipe, Mack sidles over to Phil and says, “Sir, I’m really not comfortable with how my Active’s being used as a guinea pig. Can we send her out on some normal engagements for awhile? Low-stress, romance or babysitting or whatever?”

Phil nods. “I think that might be a good idea. I’ve talked with Fitz and he seems to understand that this was much too high-risk for our top Active.”

“Uh,” Mack says, raising an eyebrow. “I’d think it would be too high-risk for _any_ Active, sir.”

“Of course,” says Phil quickly. “Of course, I was just speaking specifically of Charlie because that’s who we were talking about.”

Mack seems unconvinced but gets distracted when the chair deactivates and Charlie says, “Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while,” he says, slipping back into his handler role.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.”

“Would you come with me, Charlie?” Dr. Simmons asks, smiling gently. “I want to look you over and make sure you’re alright.”

“I would like that,” says Charlie, getting out of the chair. “Being healthy helps me be my best.”

Dr. Simmons nods, motioning Charlie toward the stairs. “We all want you to be that,” she agrees. “Do you feel strange at all?”

“No,” Charlie says, smiling at her. “Should I?”

“It’s better that you don’t,” Dr. Simmons promises, “but I just want to make sure.”

“Okay,” says Charlie pleasantly. “I like seeing you, Dr. Simmons.”

Dr. Simmons opens the door to her office, still smiling. “I like it too, Charlie,” she says. “How is your vision?”

“I can see things,” Charlie replies, cheerful. “I can see Tango and Foxtrot looking at books downstairs.”

“Can you tell me which pictures you see on the third line down?” Dr. Simmons asks, holding up a chart. “In the proper order?”

“Apple, umbrella, house, apple, umbrella,” Charlie replies.

“Good, good,” Dr. Simmons murmurs. “And the fifth line?”

“Apple, umbrella, house, apple, house, umbrella,” says Charlie, smiling. “That’s almost the same thing as the last one.”

“Almost,” Dr. Simmons agrees with a little laugh. “Does your head hurt at all?”

Charlie shakes her head. “No. I feel fine.”

“Good,” Dr. Simmons repeats. “If it does start hurting, Charlie, I need you to tell me or Mack or one of the attendants right away, alright?”

“Okay,” Charlie says. “Why?”

Dr. Simmons tilts her head. She’s not used to the Dolls asking “why” - as a rule, they lack the capacity to question basic orders like that. “Well,” she says slowly, “if your head hurts, it means that you’re not your best. It’s not your fault, but it’s something you should tell us so we can help you fix it.” A little wordy, but they’re all short words, at least.

Charlie nods. “Okay. I want to be my best. Thank you for explaining.”

Dr. Simmons nods. “You’re welcome, Charlie,” she says. “Would you like a lollipop?”

“Yes,” Charlie says, taking it from her. “You’re very nice, Dr. Simmons.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Dr. Simmons says with a little laugh. “I want to help you how I can.”

“Thank you,” repeats Charlie. “Shall I go now?”

“If you like,” Dr. Simmons replies. “See about getting something to eat, alright?”

“Okay,” says Charlie, sliding off the table and walking away. When she spots Mack waiting outside, she says, “Hello, Mack.”

“Hello, Charlie,” Mack says. “Go on, I’m just going to talk to Dr. Simmons for a minute.”

“Okay.” Charlie smiles at him and leaves.

“Are we sure she wasn’t truly hurt?” Jemma asks Mack, unconsciously dropping her professional “doctor” posture a bit.

“As far as we know, he only hit her in the face once,” he says with a sigh. “And if you didn’t find any bruising, then...I guess she’s okay.”

“It’s been a short enough time that side-effects might still appear,” Jemma replies, “but she seems to be her usual self. She’s remarkably resilient.”

Mack nods. “That’s good. She needs a break though.” Then he laughs kind of wryly. “She made friends with one of the girls in the cult, so I guess I have a pen pal now.”

“The girl who sent the help letter?” Jemma asks. “The poor thing, I can’t even imagine realizing that everything you’ve known is a lie like that.”

“I’m not sure, honestly,” says Mack. “She told me a little about her. I think it might be the same one? But Charlie didn’t mention if that girl was the one to plant the note or not. I hope she’s okay though.”

“I hope so too.” She sighs and stares out at the Dollhouse, watching Charlie wind through the room smiling aimlessly at other Dolls. “I suppose if she’s not, we can always send someone out after her again. She’s sort of our responsibility now.”

“I guess so.” Mack sighs again. “I didn’t exactly think it’d be like this, when I started.” He glances over at Jemma, like he’s maybe not sure if he should say it, but then he adds, “Did you?”

“Not at all,” Jemma admits, sighing. “I don’t think I’d have gotten into this if Fitz hadn’t, you know. He had all of these brilliant ideas and attracted the Dollhouse’s attention, and then he suggested me for this position. We were still half a year from finishing our doctorates, mind, but I knew I liked working with him and I thought this might be an interesting challenge, that I’d be helping people in an innovative way. Sometimes it feels like all I’m doing is cleaning up messes, though.” She wrinkles her nose. “That’s mean to say, but I definitely didn’t realize we’d be using living people as test subjects in quite this way.”

Mack makes a sympathetic face. “Yeah. It’s...something alright.”


	6. I'm too worried 'bout what you're doin' doin', you're not worried 'bout what I'm doing too. what you're doing to me, why can't you see?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Charlie is sent on an allegedly relaxing romantic engagement, the Dollhouse staff deals with a problem Foxtrot is having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike: Lincoln  
> Charlie (Kristin): Daisy  
> Romeo (Caspar): Trip  
> Tango: Bobbi  
> Foxtrot: Kara  
> Delta (Naomi): Akela  
> Bravo (Adonis): Mike
> 
> tw menacing and a little light murder.

Morning comes, the lights switch on, and the sleeping pods slide open in unison. Mike smiles at Charlie, Charlie smiles at Romeo, Romeo smiles at Tango, and Tango turns to smile at Foxtrot, but Foxtrot hasn’t climbed out of her pod.

“It’s time to wake up,” Tango says authoritatively, kneeling down beside Foxtrot’s pod. “We need to wake up and eat breakfast. Breakfast helps us be our best.”

“What’s going on?” Charlie asks, tilting her head.

“Foxtrot is still asleep,” Tango declares, though she sounds perplexed. “She looks like she’s thinking about something sad.”

“She shouldn’t be sad,” Romeo says. “You should wake her up.”

“All right,” Tango agrees. “Foxtrot, wake up.”

Nothing happens. Or, what Tango wants to happen doesn’t happen and instead Foxtrot twitches and makes a strange noise and looks even sadder.

“Maybe you have to touch her,” suggests Charlie.

Tango laughs a little in spite of herself. “How?” she asks, though she reaches down and pokes Foxtrot’s shoulder tentatively. “That isn’t working.”

“Maybe touch her...more?” Charlie asks, frowning. “Don’t hurt her. But make sure she can feel you. She might not have been able to feel it.”

“All right,” Tango repeats. She braces herself and leans halfway into the pod to shake Foxtrot very gently, murmuring, “Wake up, Foxtrot, it’s time to wake up.”

Soon Foxtrot does, but when her eyes open they’re wet with tears. “Tango?” she asks.

“You didn’t wake up,” Tango says, offering Foxtrot a hand to pull her out of the pod. “And you’re crying. Why are you crying?”

Foxtrot blinks. “I don’t know,” she says. “Crying is for when you’re hurt. I was asleep, not hurt.”

“Were you thinking about things while you were sleeping?” Charlie asks.

“I don’t know,” Foxtrot says again, but more doubtfully. “I think there was a man, and it was dark.”

“Of course it was dark,” Mike points out, “you were asleep. It’s always dark when you’re asleep.”

“It wasn’t dark like being asleep,” Foxtrot insists, wiping her eyes. “It was a different kind of dark.”

An attendant comes to lead them out to the main room for breakfast, but while Mike and Romeo walk ahead Tango and Charlie hang back with Foxtrot. Tango is holding Foxtrot’s hand.

“You’re sad,” Tango says. “If you’re sad, you are not your best. I want to fix it.”

“You should take her to see Dr. Simmons,” Charlie says. “Dr. Simmons can fix it. She’s good at fixing things.”

Tango nods. “She’s very nice,” she agrees. They come into the main room and, instead of going for the breakfast tables, Tango pulls Foxtrot over to Dr. Simmons’ office. Dr. Simmons is putting a book back on her shelf, and she doesn’t look sad but she doesn’t look happy either. “Dr. Simmons,” Tango says, “Foxtrot was sad while she was sleeping.”

Dr. Simmons turns around to look at the pair of Dolls, and now she looks scared, which scares Tango and Foxtrot too. “She was?” she asks. “What do you mean?”

“She didn’t wake up when the rest of us woke up,” Tango says, and Foxtrot nods along. “And she was making strange noises in her sleep. So I talked to her and touched her to make her wake up, and when she opened her eyes she was crying.”

“Foxtrot, come sit on the table,” Dr. Simmons instructs, frowning. Once Foxtrot is in place, Dr. Simmons reaches up to touch her forehead and asks, “Do you remember what made you cry?”

“It was dark,” Foxtrot says, “but not dark like being asleep. It was dark like something scary. And a man was there.” She sounds a little more sure about this now.

“Where?” Dr. Simmons asks. “Where was the man?”

“In the dark,” Foxtrot says.

“In the room with you?” Dr. Simmons prompts.

“No,” Foxtrot says. “In my head. It was dark in my head and the man was in my head.”

Dr. Simmons’ face falls. “I need to call, ah, Dr. Fitz,” she says softly. “You should go on to breakfast, Tango.”

“I am going to stay with Foxtrot,” Tango announces. “She is sad. I want to help. Friends help each other out.”

“Yes,” Dr. Simmons says, and she picks up her phone.

Several minutes later, Dr. Fitz comes into Dr. Simmons’ office. He doesn’t look happy, sad, or scared, Tango thinks, he looks angry. “What’s happening?” he asks Dr. Simmons.

“I think Foxtrot might have been having a bad dream,” Dr. Simmons murmurs.

“She was asleep,” Tango adds. “And sad. She was sad while she was asleep.”

Dr. Fitz groans and puts his head in his hands for a second. Then he looks up again. “Foxtrot,” he says, very slowly, “can you tell me what happened?”

“I was asleep,” Foxtrot says. “It was dark and I saw a man, but not in the room. It was like art class, when you think of something to make a painting of it, but I didn’t mean to think about it because I was asleep.”

“That sounds like a bad dream,” Dr. Simmons whispers urgently.

“Yes,” agrees Dr. Fitz quietly, and then says, a bit louder, “Has this happened to you before, do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” Foxtrot says. “Tango and Charlie were scared.”

“Probably because they’d never seen this before,” Dr. Simmons suggests.

“Do you remember anything else?” Dr. Fitz presses. “What did the man look like?”

Foxtrot’s shoulders slump. “I don’t know,” she says. “It was dark. He seemed tall.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing,” Dr. Fitz says to Dr. Simmons, before turning back to Foxtrot. “Thank you, Foxtrot. Is it alright if Dr. Simmons examines you now?”

“Yes,” Foxtrot says. “I want to be my best.”

“Good.” Fitz looks at Tango. “Tango, I think you’d better go to breakfast now.”

Tango frowns at Foxtrot, but then she nods. “I’ll save you a seat,” she says to Foxtrot. “Goodbye, Dr. Simmons, goodbye, Dr. Fitz.”

Dr. Fitz looks at Dr. Simmons. “What...what should we do about this?” he asks, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Simmons replies, frowning. “It’s rather more neurological than biochemical, isn’t it?” Then she sighs and touches her face. “You had better rearrange the schedule.”

Dr. Fitz nods. “I’ll call Phil.” He glances back at Foxtrot. “Bye, Foxtrot.”

“Goodbye,” Foxtrot says, waving politely.

 

* * *

 

“Phil,” Fitz hisses into his phone once he’s out of earshot, “we’ll need to change the plans for the Koenig engagement.”

“What? What’s happened?”

Fitz sighs. “It’s a long story, but Foxtrot’s not fit for an engagement. Jemma’s taking a look at her, but she’ll be out of commission today for sure.”

“What happened?” Phil repeats. “Is she alright? Is anyone hurt?”

“She’s...we’re not sure. Tango brought her in just a few minutes ago and said she’d been crying when she woke up. It sounded like...like she’d been having a bad dream.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. “They’re not supposed to be able to have _any_ dreams,” Phil finally says.

“I _know_ ,” says Fitz, almost growling with annoyance. “But she said something about it being dark and there being a bad man, and...I don’t know. I left her with Jemma, but I wanted to let you know that we’ll have to figure out a replacement fourth.”

“Alright.” Phil sighs. “It’s last minute, but I’ll call Eric and explain. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“Just let me know what you need.” Fitz hangs up and then heads back into Jemma’s office.

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Koenig? I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

“Not at all. I was just getting ready for the party.”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news. One of the Actives you selected for tonight’s event, Foxtrot, is out of commission for the foreseeable future. I’m terribly sorry for the short notice.”

“Oh no! Foxtrot is a she, right? I hope she’s okay.”

“She’ll be alright, thank you for asking. But I’m afraid it means we’ll have to send another Active. We’re running a bit low on female Actives at the moment, but we do have one male, Bravo. Is that an acceptable substitute?”

“Will there be significant alterations to the personality?”

“I’ll work with my team to ensure that everything will be as close to your original specifications as possible.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem. Thank you for reaching out.”

“You’re very welcome. We’ll have the Actives ready to go tonight. Thanks so much for your understanding and cooperation.”

 

* * *

 

“You look gorgeous today, Naomi,” Billy says, giving his date an affectionate but not ostentatious half-a-hug.

“Thank you,” Naomi says, beaming at him and returning his half-hug warmly. “It’s lovely to see you. So glad I could make it tonight.”

“I’m glad too,” Billy chuckles. “Although, fair warning. My sister’s gonna cross-examine you.”

Naomi laughs too. “Ah, that sister I’ve heard so much about. It’ll be good to meet her at last. Where is she?”

“Probably making a fashionably late entrance,” snarks Sam, who’s being a lot less physical with his date Caspar (but he’s shy about that kind of thing, it’s normal).

Caspar grins at him. “Does she do that a lot?”

“She’s a drama queen,” Sam says, nodding. “But not in a _Mean Girls_ way. She’s way too scary for that.”

“You’re really saying you wouldn’t be afraid of Regina George?” Billy chimes in.

“That’s different,” Sam shrugs. “Regina George couldn’t kill you with her bare hands. LT probably could if she wanted.”

“Damn straight,” says a woman who must be LT, sauntering up. Unlike most of the female party guests, she’s in jeans and a leather jacket; her build is similar to the brothers’, though her hair is curlier. “Don’t you forget it, little brother.”

“LT!” Billy exclaims. “Hey, we were just telling our dates about you.” He emphasizes the word _dates_.

“Hi!” Caspar offers his hand. “I’m Sam’s date tonight. He’s told a lot of stories about you.”

“Good, bad, ugly?” LT cracks.

“Mostly good,” Naomi says with a laugh. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Naomi.”

“Naomi,” LT repeats, grinning before she looks back at Caspar. “And you?”

“Caspar. Yeah, like the friendly ghost.” Caspar chuckles. “I don’t mind the jokes, but I’ve heard ‘em all before.”

LT chuckles. “Wasn’t gonna go there, don’t worry,” she says. “So. Caspar and Naomi. Where did you meet these lovely dates, guys?” She raises an eyebrow like she already knows. (She does.)

“Billy and I met online, actually,” says Naomi. “We were playing the same online game and kept running into each other, and then it turned out we lived about twenty minutes away from each other. We met up for coffee, and the rest is history.”

“How convenient,” LT remarks wryly.

“And Sam and I go to the same Friday night Magic tournament,” Caspar explains.

“Aw,” LT teases. “Nerd affection. It’s good of you to indulge these two, they’re just a little socially inept.”

“Hey,” Billy exclaims, even though he knows it’s true.

“I think it’s cute,” Naomi says, beaming at him.

Billy puffs up a little with pride before fixing LT with a skeptical look. “Anyway, I don’t see _your_ lady around here anywhere,” he declares.

“She’s in Japan for business,” LT says smoothly.

“Oh, _Japan_?” Sam teases.

“Yeah, smartass,” LT chortles, and she pulls out her phone to show them a picture. “Here she is. If you’re nice I’ll tell her to bring you back your very own samurai swords.”

Both of them look appropriately chastised, but then the moment passes as Thurston and Eric head for the open bar with their dates and Billy and Sam decide that, well, it’s just not fair that they take _all_ the shit. “Hey!” Billy calls, waving them over. “LT was just saying she wanted to meet your special friends.”

“I really wasn’t,” LT deadpans. “If just because I’d never say ‘special friends.’”

“It’s gender-neutral,” Sam defends.

“Oh, hi,” says the woman on Eric’s arm, smiling and waving. “My name’s Kristin. You must be LT?”

“That’s me,” LT agrees, looking amused and then nodding to Thurston’s date. “What’s your name?”

“Adonis,” says the man, smirking. “My mama had some weird ideas about what she wanted me to be, I guess.”

LT looks like she’s about to put her face in her hands, but she knows better than to question a Doll’s programming right to the Doll themselves. Instead she says, “I guess I’ve heard stranger.”

 

* * *

 

Elena chuckles at Mack as they listen to the conversation. “I don’t mean to be mean, but I think I can see why they hired us to get them dates.”

Mack snorts. “Hey, they seem alright. Just a little awkward.”

“Oh, they are very polite and respectful, which is better than some clients,” agrees Elena. “But it’s obvious that they don’t go in for dating much.”

“They really don’t,” Victoria drawls. “This isn’t any of their first time contracting, although I’m pretty sure it _is_ the first time they’ve all gotten dates at the same time for the same party.” She rolls her eyes, but not meanly. “It’s like a wacky sitcom, except a lot more money changed hands.”

“At least they’re some of the most chaste engagements we have to listen to,” remarks Anne, who’s Bravo’s Handler. “That part is refreshing.”

Mack makes a face. “I guess that’s true.”

“Besides,” Anne continues, nodding at Mack, “it gives Charlie a break. Isn’t that what you’d asked for?”

“I did,” he agrees. “Being what basically amounts to arm candy’s not that stressful.”

“At least not for harmless clients like this,” Victoria remarks. “I’m still shocked that Thurston was so calm about playing queer for the day. A lot of guys wouldn’t be.”

“It’s not like there were a lot of other options,” Anne remarks. “Of course something had to happen to Foxtrot on one of our busiest days this month. Has Isabelle texted you with any updates yet?”

Victoria shakes her head. “I don’t know how much they’re even going to tell her,” she grumbles. “Oh, they’ll ask if anything weird happened on recent engagements, but I’m sure it’s very need-to-know. Keeps rumors from circulating.”

“As if you’d do anything different in Phil’s position,” Anne remarks.

“Probably not,” Victoria says. “But I know it pisses Belle off to be kept in the dark.”

Mack grins slyly. “Yeah, you’d know, huh?”

“Yes, I would,” Victoria says. “That’s what I just said.” She rolls her eyes - she and Isabelle have been dating longer than anyone else in the Dollhouse, they’re both used to being teased. At least she knows that Mack (being one of the other couples in the House) doesn’t mean anything weird by it.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Robbie asks, while they’re waiting for their entrees to arrive, “what exactly do you _do_? I mean, jobwise. I realized I never asked.” That, and she’s never mentioned having to go to work, or any kind of work at all. It’s a little weird, now that he thinks about it.

Emily shrugs. “A little of this, a little of that,” she says. “I like to think of myself as a painter.”

“Oh, wow,” he says, impressed. “What kind of stuff do you paint? Do you sell them?”

“I don’t really stick to just one thing,” she replies sheepishly. “Kind of whatever strikes me as interesting. I’ve sold some of them, kept some of them.”

“Can I see some of them?” he asks, and then regrets it. “That was weird, I shouldn’t-”

“It’s not weird,” she promises. “I have a couple of them on my phone, just a sec.” She clicks through her photos app and finds a painting to show; it’s an urban-looking window with a flowerbox in front, nothing revolutionary but very pleasant and just artsy enough to be interesting without being pretentious.

He smiles. “Wow. I can’t even draw stick figures. You’re good.”

“Thanks,” she says, tucking hair behind her ear. “It’s always been something I like doing, so I’m glad I don’t totally suck at it.”

“You really don’t,” he says. “You must be pretty successful, huh?”

“I do okay for myself,” she replies. “I’m not famous or anything, but I’m happy.”

“Not to be nosy, but you’ve gotta be doing something else for money to live in LA,” he says casually. “Sugar daddy?” He’s kidding, mostly, and he keeps his tone light so she can tell.

“Enough family money to keep me from starving, actually,” Emily remarks wryly. “It’s a nice cushion.”

Robbie laughs and nods. “That’s good. I mean, I’d prefer you didn’t starve.”

“Me too,” she jokes.

He’s about to say something else playful, but then his phone beeps. He set up a secret algorithm on Instagram to alert him when someone posts a picture of “Stella” or someone who might be her. “Sorry, just a sec,” he says, hoping Emily won’t ask what’s up. He checks on the notification and - yep, that’s “Stella” alright. She’s at some fancy fundraising party across town. If he hurries, he can probably sneak in and catch her before she leaves. “Uh,” he says, “I really hate to do this, but Gabe just texted me and asked me to come home and help him with something.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Emily says with a cheerful shrug. “You go take care of him, and if you want to come over later or something just text.”

“Okay,” he says, and then before he loses his nerve he leans over to kiss her cheek. “Bye,” he says, in possibly the most awkward way possible, before getting up and leaving.

 

* * *

 

“Wait,” Fitz says, “you’re saying Tango _brought_ her in?”

Jemma nods. “Straight after they woke up, before they even ate anything,” she says. “Foxtrot was clearly upset, and Tango was trying to help.”

Fitz rubs his temple. “That’s not good. That’s, that’s very _bad_ in fact.”

“That they didn’t waste time asking for help?” she asks archly. She knows that’s not the answer.

“No,” he sighs, like she’s a child. “Because Tango’s showing an interest in her. _Again._ ”

“Oh, god,” she groans. “They happened to be sleeping in the same room. Tango happened to be nearby. We do rather instill that in them, friends helping each other out and all.”

“Yes, but Foxtrot’s already malfunctioning, er, her imprint’s malfunctioning. It sounded like she was having a bad dream, didn’t it? Except of course it couldn’t be a bad dream, it _shouldn’t_ be, because Dolls can’t have bad dreams, because I programmed that out of them!” Fitz is trying to keep his voice low, because Foxtrot is still in the other room, but he’s not succeeding as well as he’d like.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Fitz,” Jemma hisses. “What does or doesn’t happen in their minds is your business, not mine, as you remind me _rather_ often. I’m sure you can fix it, can’t you?” She rolls her eyes. It’s not that she couldn’t sort out the programming if she tried, but he has his arena and she has hers.

“Of course I can,” he snaps. “I’ll need to talk to her more, see what exactly this nightmare of hers involves.”

“Go on, then,” she says, waving a hand toward the door into his office (they can’t exactly have this chat in the imprint room) but not waiting for him to start heading that way herself.

Foxtrot is still sitting on the couch, looking around with about as much curiosity as she’s able, and Isabelle is standing by the fridge looking surly. “What exactly is going on here?” she asks in a low voice. “I got her to stop crying, but I’ve never seen her upset before.”

“We’re not sure,” grumbles Fitz. “I’ll have to talk to her again.”

“Foxtrot?” Jemma says, straightening her spine and slipping into her Dr. Simmons manners effortlessly. “Do you think you could tell us a bit more about what you think you saw?”

“There was a man in the dark,” Foxtrot says, frowning, and instinctively she glances to Isabelle for comfort.

Isabelle comes over to sit down next to Foxtrot, putting a hand gently on her shoulder. “You’re doing great,” she says.

This makes Foxtrot smile, and she nods bravely before continuing. “He was a bad man,” she says. This much is new information, sort of. “I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him being in my head.”

“How do you know he was bad?” Fitz asks. “Did he do or say anything to you? Did he hurt you?”

Foxtrot shakes her head. “I just knew,” she says. “He was scary. He was coming too close to me.”

“What did he look like?” presses Fitz.

“It was dark,” Foxtrot says. “He was tall. His hair was different than yours?” She sounds like she’s having to work very hard to come up with this information.

“Different how?” Dr. Simmons asks gently.

“Where were you?” Fitz asks less gently. “Do you remember anything about your surroundings, other than that it was dark?”

‘No,” Foxtrot says. “I don’t know.” She’s sniffling again, which isn’t a good sign.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Fitz asks.

Foxtrot shakes her head again. “No,” she repeats. “Shall I go now?”

“Yes,” Isabelle says, with a sharp look at Fitz. “Let her go, she’s had a rough morning.”

“Not yet. I want to wipe her again,” Fitz says, “just in case. Foxtrot, would you like a treatment?”

“I enjoy my treatments,” Foxtrot murmurs, looking pitifully up at Isabelle.

“Come on,” says Isabelle gently. “After your treatment you can have breakfast, how about that?”

“It’s important to eat breakfast,” Foxtrot nods.

After doing the wipe, they send Foxtrot on her way, and Isabelle, with a final annoyed look, leaves as well. “Hopefully that works,” he sighs. “This is a mess.”

“Assuming the bad man is real,” Jemma muses, “it’s either something from her past or something to do with an engagement. Perhaps we start with reviewing her recent engagements? See if anything upsetting happened.”

Fitz nods, relieved that Jemma’s stopped being mad at him. That’s the last thing he needs to deal with, on top of everything else. “I can go over the footage today, I haven’t much to do. In the meantime, I think perhaps we’d better minimize her contact with Tango. I don’t think it’s good for either of them.”

“She mentioned that Charlie had been concerned, too, earlier,” Jemma points out. “I really do think it’s just… I don’t know exactly, Doll camaraderie.”

Fitz shakes his head. “I don’t like the way they keep getting into trouble around one another. Let’s try keeping them separate for a week or two, at least.”

“Getting into trouble makes it sound like they’re caught cheating on exams,” Jemma laughs.

“You know what I mean,” Fitz says with a snort. “We don’t want any of them forming too strong a bond with another anyway. We can’t know if…” He trails off and then adds, “I just think it’ll be better this way.”

She makes a face, but she already knows she’s lost this one. “We’ll try it, I suppose,” she says. “And in the meantime, we should try to solve Foxtrot’s mysterious problem.” She nods decisively - it’s a project, and she likes those. Most of the Dolls are on engagements today, so she’s got the time as well, and she’s clearly eager.

“Yes, of course,” he says with a nod. “If you’d like, we could watch the footage together? Might be better to have two sets of eyes on it.”

“Always is,” she replies, grinning at him.

“Great!” he says, grinning back. He likes it much better when she’s smiling at him.

They don’t have footage of the engagements themselves, obviously, but they do have the security feed showing the Dolls entering and exiting the Dollhouse. The tapes aren’t the most interesting thing he’s ever seen - honestly, a couple of times he has to focus _really_ hard to keep from nodding off. Foxtrot’s a popular Doll, so they have a decent amount of footage of her. They start to notice that the same guy comes to pick her up maybe half the time, a dark-haired man with a strong jaw wearing fancy suits. “Well, there’s a man,” Fitz jokes. “Maybe that’s who she means.”

“He’s tallish,” Jemma says thoughtfully. “He’s not a client, is he?”

“I don’t know,” Fitz says with a shrug. “Sometimes clients pick them up themselves, sometimes they send drivers. Let me check the log, see what imprints these were.” After tapping at his computer for a few minutes, he says, “Hm, they’re all different imprints. Same client, though.”

Jemma peers over at the screen, then back at the videos. “This is the driver, it looks like,” she says. “It’s certainly not the client.”

“Doesn’t mean that he isn’t the man she’s talking about,” he points out. “Let’s keep watching.”

“What would the driver do to bother her that much, though?” she asks, furrowing her brow. “I mean, he seems… not the friendliest of men, but…” She shrugs. She tries to keep her misandry in check when she’s with Fitz since, technically, he’s also a man.

Fitz shrugs. “Maybe we’ll find out.”

They get through three more mundane pickups and drop-offs before, finally, something interesting happens. “Is he…?” Fitz asks, raising both eyebrows. Onscreen, the driver is holding the car door for Foxtrot, and then, as she’s getting in, he reaches to blatantly squeeze her ass.

“Well, I hate him,” Jemma declares abruptly.

Fitz wrinkles his nose. “Do you think Foxtrot would remember that?”

“I mean, I suppose it’s possible that sense memory would kick in unexpectedly,” Jemma says.

“It’s certainly possible,” Fitz says. He narrows his eyes. “So what are we gonna do to the bastard?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I… I suppose we could talk to Phil about it. He could speak to the client, tell him to stop engaging that driver.”

“Or,” Fitz says, his lip curling, “we could take matters into our own hands.”

Jemma narrows her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“I could throw a little something extra into her imprint,” he replies darkly. “Self-defense, or something more dramatic. I know how to do that. I’ve done it before.”

“Without asking permission?” she yelps. “I understand that sometimes the parameters of the mission are, well, also dramatic, but that’s parameters. You know, the ones that are requested of you.” She makes a face. “Believe me, I’d be happy to give every woman the ability to deter a would-be molester, but I don’t think you’re suggesting just a swift kick to the crotch.”

He shrugs. “Don’t you think sometimes it’s necessary to take extreme measures? If he’s been doing this regularly, and maybe to other girls too? Wouldn’t it be better to just take him out of the picture altogether?”

“There’s a difference between wishing that all perverts would suddenly disappear and risking an innocent girl’s life by having her commit murder without her even knowingly agreeing to it.”

Fitz frowns. “You don’t think Foxtrot would agree if she were aware of what was going on?”

“I don’t know what she’d do,” Jemma says softly. “I don’t know who she really is, or if she’d be comfortable doing that. I think she’d want him stopped, but…”

“Alright, alright,” sighs Fitz. “Let’s talk to Phil about it, and look into him a bit more.”

 

* * *

 

It’s actually pretty easy to get into this party - their security is laughable. He just sweet-talks the person checking IDs a little, and he’s in. It’s a fundraiser, he can’t quite figure out for what, but it’s a bunch of fancy rich people standing around talking, so it’s probably something important.

He makes his way through the crowd, exchanging pleasantries with people when necessary and grabbing a drink so he has something to talk about, and he’s just spotted the guy who posted the picture with Stella leaving the room when someone taps him on the shoulder. “I don’t think we’ve met?”

He turns around. A middle-aged brunette woman is smiling at him. “Hi,” he says, smiling back. “I’m...Johnny. Johnny Blaze.” It’s a stupid name, but he happened to be looking at one of the candles, and Johnny Candle sounds even more made-up. “Nice to meet you. I just came in.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blaze,” the woman says, nodding like there’s nothing wrong with this.

“Johnny is fine,” he says with a laugh. He should have picked something less stupid, because he can’t burst into laughter whenever anyone says his own fake name. “Lovely party you have here.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, holding her hand out and laughing (slightly fakely). “God, where are my manners? I’m Rhonda Bluth. Welcome to my home.”

“It’s very nice,” he says with a nod. “I admit I don’t know a lot of people here.”

“Oh?” Rhonda murmurs. “Who did you come with? Or on behalf of, I suppose.”

“I work for, ah,” he says, trying to stall. Then he discreetly reaches into his pocket and flips the switch on his phone to turn the sound on, which makes it vibrate. He pulls it out to glance at it and then says, “Sorry, will you excuse me for a second? My brother is calling and he might need my help with something, he’s disabled.” He feels bad using Gabe as a hypothetical out, but he doesn’t really have a choice, and it’s not like he’ll ever see this lady again after today.

“I understand,” Rhonda says softly, waving him away. “Family is important.”

Robbie nods and steps just far enough away so that she can’t see him, then he ducks into the room that he saw Stella’s date go into. He’s not there, but there is a guy that he recognizes from some of the pictures he’s seen Stella in. Tall, dark-skinned black guy, nice smile. Maybe he’s her pimp? He goes over to investigate.

“Hi,” he says, smiling. “Great drinks, huh?”

“Yeah,” the guy agrees. “What’s yours?”

“Just a margarita,” Robbie replies. “You?”

“Old Fashioned. I’m pretty boring.” The guy shrugs good-naturedly.

“Hey, it’s a classic for a reason,” Robbie argues with a smirk. “I’m Johnny.”

“Caspar.” Caspar offers his hand. “So, did you come to this shindig with anybody?”

“Nope, flying solo today. You?”

“I’m here with Sam Koenig, actually.” Caspar looks a bit sheepish. “Basically arm candy. We haven’t been, y’know, a _thing_ for very long, but he asked me to come, and since the whole thing’s kind of a family affair I agreed.”

Robbie nods even though the name goes totally over his head. “Are you having a good time, at least?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s fine. Sam’s off being chatted up to donate, which I totally get. I’m happy to just hang out.”

Robbie decides to just go for it. “This is a little weird, but have we met somewhere before? You seem really familiar.”

Caspar chuckles. “I’m not great with faces, I’m afraid. Sorry. If we have met, I wouldn’t remember it.”

“Hey, no worries. I just feel like I’ve met you somewhere before.”

“Just one of those faces, I guess.” Shrugging, Caspar adds, “I get that a lot.”

Robbie’s about to say something in response, when suddenly he spots Stella across the room, laughing with someone. “Ah,” he says, “I have to…” Then he decides fuck it and turns on his heel to go after her, yelping, “Back in a second!”

He hovers around awkwardly, waiting for her conversation to end, and then he says, “Stella? Do you remember me? We met in a bar awhile back.”

She turns around, and yep, it’s undeniably her. “What?” she asks, blinking at him.

 

* * *

 

“Oh no,” Mack says, mouth dropping. “No _way_.”

“What?” Elena asks, eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

Mack puts his head in his hands. “It’s that guy again.”

“What guy do you mean?” Anne asks, frowning.

“That guy that has been tailing Charlie,” sighs Mack. “I thought we got rid of him months ago, but he found her again.”

“Oh, you mean the one that showed up on that date Romeo and I were doing surveillance on?” Victoria asks. “You sure it’s him?”

“He’s calling her Stella. It was one of her names on an engagement and I guess he thinks it’s her name? Or her street name or something.”

“Stella isn’t exactly a good street name,” Anne smirks.

Mack laughs, but not really like anything is funny. “He seems to think he can...I don’t know, help her? It’s a huge pain in my ass.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Anne says suddenly. “The one Phil went to all that trouble to menace? He can’t be that big of a threat, all we did was get him beat up.”

Mack shrugs. “Well, anyway, he’s back, and I don’t know how she’ll handle this.”

“Should we call them back?” Elena asks, frowning. “Invent some excuse?”

“Let it play out a bit,” Anne suggests. “Between the four of them, eight if you count the Koenigs, it’s likely they’ll find some way to deal with it.”

Mack looks worried, but he nods reluctantly.

 

* * *

 

“Stella,” Robbie insists. “You’re Stella. We met in a bar a few months ago and talked about our brothers and your job.”

Stella frowns. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any brothers. And my name’s not Stella, it’s Kristin.”

“You said you have two older brothers,” Robbie insists. “And you were on a date with some guy at the bar. You…” He pauses, not wanting to out her as a sex worker if she doesn’t want to be. “You said one of your brothers would want to beat people up if he knew what you did.”

Stella (not-Stella?) looks shocked. “Are you implying that I’m a _hooker_?”

“Uh.” He’s suddenly starting to feel like this wasn’t such a great approach. “The preferred term is sex worker, isn’t it?”

A short, round man comes over and lays a hand on not-Stella’s arm. “Kris, is this guy bothering you?”

“Well, he just called me a hooker, so.” Kristin glares at Robbie. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

“No!” yelps Robbie, horrified. “That’s not what I meant at all, there’s a lot of different types of stuff, and I don’t know details, but there are really high-class escorts, and…”

“ _Oh my god, I don’t do_ porn _!_ ” she shrieks, loud enough that most people around them turn to look at the commotion. “I’m not a goddamn porn star! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t say you did porn!” Robbie protests, putting up his hands defensively. This is going downhill fast. “I just-”

“Why would you say I do porn? I don’t do porn!” she yells. “And who the hell are you? Do _you_ do porn?” Then she turns on the other guy. “Seriously, do I look like a porn star to you?”

“No!” the guy exclaims. “No, you’re very sophisticated. Not that people who do porn can’t be sophisticated, but you don’t…” He shrugs sheepishly.

“And _you_ don’t do porn,” she adds to him, and then scowls. “Or do you? Is this whole thing some weird fundraiser for porn? Or did you get the money you donated from doing porn? Is that why your whole family is so loaded, because of all the porn?”

“There’s no porn!” the guy shouts, panicking. “I promise. We’ve never done porn! I’ve never done porn. Not that there’s anything wrong with porn, but I don’t do porn!”

“I didn’t ever say you did porn!” Robbie says, getting increasingly desperate. “I just wanted to talk to you again, make sure you were okay, because you come up in a lot of pictures-”

“Pictures? Jesus Christ, _porn_ pictures? I have no fucking idea who you’re talking about, you pervert, but it’s not me! I’m leaving!” Kristin flounces away dramatically.

Robbie stares after her, confused and upset. He doesn’t get very long to absorb what just happened, though, because her date points at him and talks quietly to some burly men in dark suits and then one of them says, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. If you don’t leave, you’ll be escorted out. We don’t want to involve the police.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go.” Robbie quickly gets out of the house, his mind racing. Stella or Kristin or whoever she is is a good actress, but something doesn’t seem right here. Someone is lying, and it’s not him. What the _hell_ is going on here?

 

* * *

 

Melinda blinks at them. “Say all that again,” she says slowly.

“Foxtrot apparently had a nightmare last night,” Jemma sighs. “When we asked her about it, she said something about a bad man being involved, so we started to look into her recent engagements to see if there was anything out of the ordinary that might have triggered her subconscious like that.”

“Dolls don’t -”

“We know,” Jemma insists. “That’s why we thought it was highly likely that something had happened recently, something specific and especially troubling, something that would interfere with the programming. And we certainly found something that qualifies.” She makes a face.

“One of her repeat clients has a driver who picks her up for engagements,” Fitz says. “He grabbed her arse and squeezed once, and he’s been a right arsehole in other ways too. Leering and such.”

Melinda frowns. “And what do you want to do about this?”

“Well, first off we want to figure out who this man _is_ ,” Jemma says. “And then we can seek an appropriate recourse. Requiring the client to use a different driver, perhaps.”

“Alright, I suppose that’s reasonable enough,” agrees Melinda. “So we’re just researching him? I’ll get right on that.”

Fitz nods. “Everything we can get on him. Jemma and I will look into it too. And I think we should talk to Phil about it once we have more information.”

Several hours later, Jemma is staring at the computer monitor in front of her with an abjectly horrified expression. “I think this is what hatred feels like,” she murmurs. “I hate him.”

Fitz’s mouth is twisted into almost a snarl. “Can we go and talk to Phil now?”

“I think we’d better,” sighs Melinda.

They’re heading toward Phil’s office when they spot him heading for the elevator. “Phil,” Melinda calls. “Can we speak to you?”

Phil smiles. “What’s going on? Oh, Fitz, Simmons, how is Foxtrot doing?”

“She’s alright, but that’s what we wanted to speak about,” Jemma frets, wringing her hands.

Phil looks at them expectantly, and Fitz explains what they saw in the video. “So we looked into the driver,” he says. “His name is Sunil Bakshi, He grew up in London, joined the military, but was discharged a few years in. Then he became a...well.” He coughs. “He’s an assassin, sir.”

Phil’s eyes widen. “An _assassin?_ And he’s a client’s driver?”

“Apparently,” Melinda says. “I checked the records myself. Seems like he’s a private contractor, of sorts, and the driving is his day job. For lack of a better word.”

“I suppose it probably goes without saying that his primary clientele is shady businessmen,” Jemma chimes in, grimacing. “Which may or may not be how he came into contact with _our_ client, we don’t know, but whatever the case he’s not a good person, and having him come into contact with our Dolls is clearly dangerous.”

Nodding, Phil says, “So what do we want to do about it? He’s not technically one of our clients and we don’t have any contact with him, so…”

“Well, we have a bit of contact with him, potentially, if he picks the Dolls up,” Jemma points out, clearly timid. “Technically.”

“I have an idea.” Everyone turns to look at Fitz. “We could just take care of the problem ourselves,” he points out. “I can program someone to take care of him. It won’t be hard.”

Melinda stares at him. “That is the worst idea I have ever heard.”

“Fitz!” Jemma exclaims. “I thought we agreed that was unwise.”

“No, _you_ said it was unwise,” Fitz argues. “I think this would be easiest.”

“I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle this,” Phil says, looking unsettled. “Can we put a pin in this for later? I’ve just gotten a message from Mack and the other handlers on the Koenig engagement, and they’ve run into an issue with that guy who was tracking Charlie-”

Fitz perks up. “Oh! I can get someone to take care of him too.”

“Well, _he’s_ not a killer,” Jemma yelps. “I don’t think we need to go there quite yet.”

“Why not?” Fitz argues. “It’s killing two birds with one stone.”

Before anyone can respond, Mike wanders by and blinks. “It’s not nice to kill birds,” he points out.

Jemma tries to give him a patient smile, though it’s strained. “That’s right, Mike,” she says.

“Please don’t kill birds,” he adds, looking at Fitz.

Fitz sighs. “I won’t kill any birds, Mike, I promise. Why don’t you go swim?”

Mike smiles evenly. “I like swimming. Swimming helps me be my best.” He wanders off toward the pool.

“Let’s not do that, Fitz,” Melinda says, rolling her eyes. “I do have another idea, though.”

 

* * *

 

Emily is lounging around, having a glass of wine and catching up on _Scandal_ , when her doorbell rings. She’s not really expecting anyone, but then again, it could be Robbie, so she presses pause, fluffs up her hair, and goes to answer the door.

It’s definitely not Robbie. It’s a man wearing a fancy suit, who saunters in like he owns the place and shoves her against the wall. “It’ll be better if you don’t struggle,” he says.

“What?” Emily squeals, frantically batting at him. “Who are you? Why are you -”

He puts a hand over her mouth and uses his other hand to smack her across the face. “I’ll make it quick, I promise,” he says. “Just as long as you keep quiet. If you struggle or try to get help, well, I don’t know what’ll happen, but you won’t like it.”

There’s a part of her that wants to keep struggling anyway, go down fighting, but he’s stronger than she is and she’s not sure _who_ he is and she doesn’t know what to do, her mind is going in twenty different directions. Then it hits her.

This must be because of what Robbie told her, the investigation he’s trying to run. This is why he was afraid of telling her.

The man uses his left hand to pull a knife out of his pocket and seems about to make a move when suddenly, her phone rings. He seems surprised, but then says, “Don’t answer that,” as if she were going to.

She’s starting to cry soundlessly and he’s sliced off a lock of her hair (god only knows what he was planning on doing with _that_ ) when the answering machine picks up. “There are three flowers in a vase,” a male voice says, pronouncing “vase” with a British “ah.” “The third flower is green.”

Suddenly Emily’s eyes go cold. She shoves him off of her and grabs his throat in one movement, gripping tight enough to make him frantically gasp for air. She knees him in the crotch to throw him off-balance. She pushes him onto the floor, with his head resting on the edge of her coffee table, and before he can react she snaps his neck with her foot.

There’s a moment of silence, and then the voice on the other end of the telephone says, “There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is yellow.”

Emily looks down and sees the dead man on her floor as if for the first time. “What the _hell_ just happened?” she whispers to herself before she bursts into tears and backs away, sitting not on the couch but on the floor by her still-open front door, a good six feet from the body.

She’s still sitting there when Robbie walks into her apartment, shocked. “Emily?” he asks, then kneels down next to her. “Oh my god, what happened?”

“I don’t know!” Emily wails. “He showed up and he was trying to kill me and I don’t know who he is and I guess I just - I don’t know! I panicked.”

Robbie mutters something to himself in Spanish and then says in English, “This is because of me. They found out I was seeing you and came after you to get to me.”

“I don’t know,” Emily repeats, taking a shuddery breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. I was so scared.”

“It’s okay,” Robbie says, quickly, “it’s okay, you’re okay.” He pulls her close. “I’ll take care of this.”

She sobs into his shoulder for a good minute before she finally manages to whisper, “How?”

“Don’t ask, but I know how to handle stuff like this. I can make it go away.” He reaches to run a hand through her hair, hoping she’ll find that comforting. “Don’t call the cops. I’ll take care of it - the body.”

She sniffles, but judging by the soft little noise she makes she definitely appreciates the hair-touching. “Okay,” she mumbles. “I… I don’t know how I…”

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “Do you want me to stay here tonight? Or you can just go to bed and I’ll get that out of here.”

“Please stay?” Emily whispers. “I need to shower, I… I feel disgusting, I… but I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Alright.” Robbie leans in to kiss her forehead. “You go ahead, I’ll be back in a little while.”

So she picks herself up and wanders toward her bathroom, trying to stop crying. It doesn’t really work, but at least once she’s in the shower she can pretend there’s just water on her face (that’s stupid, but it helps). She stays in there as long as she can before the water starts to freeze, and then she winds a towel around her body, twists her hair up, and tiptoes into the hallway. She doesn’t come into the living room yet just in case Robbie hasn’t moved the body yet.

Robbie must have heard her, because after a minute he comes into the hallway. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “Do you want to go to bed? I can just sleep on the couch.”

Emily shakes her head. “Come with me?” she asks softly. “I _really_ don’t want to be alone.”

He looks a bit surprised, but nods. “Okay,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

She reaches her hand to him shyly, murmuring, “Come on?”

“Oh.” He tilts his head. “You mean like…?” He smiles, equally shy. “I’m not pushing for anything, I was just coming over to hang out tonight.”

“I mean like whatever _you_ want,” she declares. “I just like having you nearby.”

“No pressure, then,” he says, taking her hand. “Unless you want to…?”

She shrugs innocently.

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Melinda says, unable to keep a note of smugness out of her voice. “That went well.”

Fitz snorts. “Yes, I suppose it did.”

“It was a rather elegant solution,” Jemma admits, casting an impressed glance Melinda’s way.

“I wasn’t suggesting we _kill_ Reyes, necessarily,” grumbles Fitz. “This was basically what I meant.”

“Either way,” Phil breaks in, “the problem with Bakshi’s been taken care of. Well done, everyone. And India came back with a clean bill of health?”

Jemma nods. “The most lasting thing he did was cut off a piece of her hair,” she says wryly. “I actually think she might have been more, ah, worn out by the…” She shrugs, because while everyone in this room knows that “Emily” and Robbie had sex (multiple times) she wants to be slightly tactful about it.

Melinda snorts. “As long as it keeps him distracted.”


	7. he put a spell upon my mind, crazy, they say I'm crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a pharmaceutical mishap at a nearby university, and the Dollhouse steps in to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tango (Agent Cat McGill): Bobbi  
> Foxtrot (Dr. Bethany Waterman): Kara  
> Romeo (Agent Allan Leary): Trip  
> Mike (Agent Harrison Swindlehurst): Lincoln  
> India (Emily): Raina  
> Charlie (Harmony): Daisy
> 
> cw: this is based on the Funny Drugs episode of _Dollhouse_ , wherein all the characters accidentally get affected by a drug that affects perception and behavior. Therefore, there is a lot of mention of people being extremely under the influence in this chapter. The most hardcore thing that happens is someone has a small panic attack, but if reading about accidental noncon drug usage is going to bother you, you may just want to skip this one.

Everything is hilarious right now. Like _so_ hilarious. Deke can’t stop laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” asks Paula, eyes wide. She’s shaking like it’s freezing out, but it’s not freezing, it’s sunny. That’s also hilarious.

Taylor is banging his head against the glass wall. He’s making a moaning noise while he does it. There’s blood on the glass. That’s the funniest thing Deke’s ever seen.

And then the glass breaks, and Taylor finally slumps to the ground and doesn’t get up, and _that_ ’s so funny Deke falls over laughing. He’s laughing so much he almost misses Paula walking over to the hole Taylor made in the wall and, very calmly, walking outside.

Outside is five stories down. Five is suddenly the best joke he’s ever heard in his life.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Dr. Ford.” Phil offers his head, then withdraws it when he gets a good look at the woman’s face. “I understand this is something of an urgent matter. What do you need our help with?”

“There was an accident at the university,” Dr. Ford sighs. “In the Rossum laboratories, specifically.”

“Oh dear.” Phil frowns. “What happened? And, not that I mean to overstep here, but shouldn’t you contact the authorities? Instead of…” A glorified escort service, he means.

“May we sit?” Dr. Ford asks, glancing at Phil’s couches.

Phil nods. “Of course, please.” He gestures to the couch closest and sits down on one end of it, then looks at her expectantly.

After sitting, Dr. Ford folds her hands in her lap, very businesslike. “Some students were exposed to a new experimental drug,” she says bluntly. “Two of them are dead.”

“Oh, how tragic. What happened?”

“Self-inflicted wounds on both accounts,” Dr. Ford says. “A boy beat his head bloody on a glass wall, which a girl then walked out of, never mind they were five feet up. The drug in question affects, or more appropriately eliminates, a person’s inhibitions.”

Just then, Fitz and Jemma enter the room. Fitz seems slightly out of breath and irritable. “What’s going on?” he gasps. “You said there was some sort of emergency.”

“Fitz, Simmons, you remember Dr. Ford,” Phil says. “She was just telling me about some sort of terrible accident caused by an experimental drug on campus.”

“Three students were exposed to it and two of them are now dead,” Dr. Ford reiterates. “The drug releases inhibitions to the point of causing irrational and harmful behavior -”

“So it affects processes in the prefrontal cortex,” Jemma supplies, eyes wide.

Fitz is nodding. “And you’re thinking Dolls have regulated prefrontal cortexes, and won’t have the same adverse reaction to the drug.”

Phil looks surprised, but then nods, trying to look like he knows what he’s talking about. “Ah yes,” he says. “Just what I was thinking.” It is clearly not what he was thinking.

Jemma casts him a sympathetic smile, like it’s really very sweet of him to try and help. “Would I be correct in thinking you want as many Actives as we have available?” she asks Dr. Ford.

Fitz makes a face, like he’s displeased with what she’s said, and then adds, “There are a few out on engagements right now, but we have quite a few ready to go.”

“We’ll take all the help we can get,” Dr. Ford agrees. “The third student vacated the scene before we had a chance to quarantine them, but there’s already been an outbreak of symptoms across campus, so they’ve certainly been busy. Doctors to treat the afflicted as well as, perhaps, CIA agents to corral people would be excellent.”

“I have a few that would be perfect for that,” Fitz says. “Give us an hour, we’ll be there.”

 

* * *

 

Hunter opens the van door and offers his hand to help Agent McGill out of the van, but she makes a show of withdrawing her own hand and pushing her way out unassisted. “Where’s the trouble?” she asks, sounding skeptical and concerned all at once.

“Right this way,” he says, not bothering to mask the slightly hurt tone in his voice.

“Perfect,” she says, rolling her eyes. Men’s feelings are so sensitive.

She’s not half a yard down the path when she nearly bumps into a woman getting out of a van of her own, a pretty doctor (judging by the coat, anyway) with dark hair. “Oh!” the woman exclaims as she straightens her skirt. “I’m so sorry. I’m in sort of a hurry.”

“I’m guessing you’re here to sort out this pharmaceutical nightmare?” McGill remarks, smirking. “You have the look for it.”

“What gave me away?” the doctor laughs, and she extends a hand. “Bethany Waterman. Dr. Waterman if you insist on being formal.”

“Agent Cat McGill,” replies McGill, and she turns the handshake into steering Dr. Waterman in the right direction. “I’m headed the same way you are. Although I imagine my job here is a lot less exciting than yours.”

“I’m not sure I’d call treating a mystery contamination _exciting_ ,” Dr. Waterman muses, chuckling.

Hunter, watching them interact, raises an eyebrow and glances over at Isabelle. “Well, _that’s_ interesting.”

Isabelle shrugs. “What am I, the gay police?”

Hunter snorts. “No. Just never seen Tango do that before.”

“What, flirt with a girl?”

“Not like that, no. I dunno.”

“You two coming?” Agent McGill calls over her shoulder.

“Ah, yes!” Hunter says, falling into step behind her. “Lead the way, Agent.”

Just as they’re about to head further into the campus, another van parks and two tall men scramble out. “Hey!” one of them (dark-skinned and handsome) calls, waving. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Leary, Swindlehurst,” McGill says, nodding at them in a most businesslike fashion. “This is Dr. Waterman. She’s one of the brains helping out today. Try to make sure the crazy kids don’t give her a hard time, huh?”

Swindlehurst, who’s pale, blonde, and fairly unremarkable, chuckles. “Well, we’re just here to make sure everything goes smoothly, ma’am.”

Leary gives Dr. Waterman a warm smile and offers his hand. “Just let us know what we can do to help.”

Just then, a group of twentysomethings on the lawn all burst out shrieking hysterically, and McGill remarks, “I think we should start by rounding those up.”

Swindlehurst goes over to the group and clears his throat. “We’d like you to come with us, please.”

One of them, a short-haired girl, looks up and him and exclaims, “Your aura is so blue! I’ve never seen anything so blue before.”

“Uh,” says Swindlehurst.

 

* * *

 

Robbie’s still not used to a _girl_ being in his bed.

It’s been a couple of weeks since that first night, when he stayed over at her place after the attack and then... _things_ happened. They’ve been kind of trying to take it slow since then, but she asked if she could stay over last night and how can he say no to that face? She’s so sweet when she sleeps. Her forehead crinkles a little, like she’s having a confusing dream.

He carefully gets up, trying not to disturb her, and slips into the kitchen to see what he can make for breakfast. Gabe is sitting at the table reading a book. “Hey, big bro,” Gabe smirks. “Gonna impress your lady?”

“Shut up,” Robbie says affectionately. “I’m just making breakfast. Do we have any eggs?”

“I dunno, you’re the one who eats them,” Gabe replies cheerfully.

After rummaging around in the fridge, Robbie retrieves half a carton of eggs and grabs a skillet. “Any plans today?”

“Homework?” Gabe shrugs. “Nothing exciting. Like usual. What about you guys?”

“I dunno, probably just hang around here. I’ve got stuff to do later but she’s up for whatever.” He’s being vague on purpose.

“You really like her, huh?” Gabe asks.

Robbie feels his face get hot. “So?” he mutters, pretending to be very invested in cracking the eggs into a bowl. “She’s really cool.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Gabe says defensively, “it’s just nice seeing you get excited about, you know, a person.” He grins, because he knows he’s being a shithead.

Robbie flips him the bird and then starts beating the eggs.

A few minutes later, Emily comes strolling into the kitchen, wearing an old shirt of Robbie’s, and immediately she blushes. “Shit, sorry, Gabe,” she mumbles. “I didn’t realize you were… which is stupid, this is your house. Should I put pants on?”

“You’re wearing more than you would at a swimming pool,” Gabe says. “I’m not gonna sexualize you just ‘cause your skin is showing, or whatever. I know better.”

“You’re fine,” Robbie agrees. “Actually, I like this.” He gives her a shy smile. “You look really good.”

“You don’t mind that I…?” Emily murmurs, tugging on the shirt.

“No, I like it.” He pours the eggs into the skillet and comes over to kiss her forehead. “It’s definitely good.”

“Thanks,” Emily grins. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“No, you sit down.” Robbie waves at the table, then goes back into the kitchen to flip the eggs. “Scrambled okay? I should have asked, shit.”

“It’s okay!” Emily promises, sitting down. “Thanks for cooking.”

“He’s really mediocre at it,” Gabe says. “This is gonna be fun.”

“Wow, you could wait to give away my secrets until after she’s eaten,” Robbie snarks. “Sorry about him, he has no manners apparently.”

“It’s normal sibling stuff, right?” Emily shrugs. “It’s cute.”

“Yes, but I know all sorts of embarrassing things about _him_ , so he’s going to cool it with that while you’re here,” Robbie says sternly, glaring right at Gabe.

“You can embarrass me, I don’t care,” Gabe says. “Should I go put the coffee on or would you rather I stay out of your way?”

Robbie looks over at Emily. “You want coffee? Or tea? I think we have tea around here somewhere.”

“Coffee is fine,” Emily assures. “Coffee is good.”

Robbie nods and turns to Gabe. “Yes to coffee, please. You can stay if you want, but no comments from the peanut gallery.”

“Aye-aye,” Gabe replies, saluting as he rolls into the kitchen and starts fixing a pot of (admittedly instant) coffee.

After a pleasant breakfast where Gabe manages to only make fun of Robbie once more, Gabe makes up some obvious story about going to the library to study and makes himself scarce. “Looks like he’s got _some_ manners,” Emily remarks, laughing.

“He can take a hint,” Robbie says playfully, leaning over to kiss her.

They’re not very far into that before his phone rings in the other room. “Shit,” he says, laughing. “I left it in my jacket, I think, in my room. Can you go grab it while I clean up?”

Emily nods. “That way I can grab mine too,” she says, standing up and heading in that direction. It’s a good couple of minutes before she returns, holding both his phone and an open notebook and frowning. “It must have already gone to voicemail, sorry. Uh, what’s… this?”

Robbie’s eyes go wide. “Uh…”

“I mean, it’s no big deal,” she hurries to say. “Just, it was open, and I couldn’t help but notice words like, you know. Murder and slavery. And I’m pretty sure you’re not taking a night class in journalism or American history.”

“No,” he mumbles. “It’s for that thing I’m working on. Y’know, the investigation. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“I’m not worried,” she says, though it’s not convincing. “I’m just… okay, yeah, I am worried. About you.”

“I’ll be okay,” Robbie insists. “I’m being careful. But I’m close to something, I think.”

“Okay,” she says doubtfully. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again. Is it about all… that?” She doesn’t really want to say “the people who injured your brother” or “the mysterious escort” out loud, but she figures he’ll know what she means.

He nods. “Yeah, that. I don’t want to tell you too much, just in case, but I’m being careful. Promise.”

“Why, don’t you trust me?” Emily jokes, except it doesn’t really come out sounding like a joke.

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” Robbie says darkly. “I don’t have a lot of details, but I think this whole thing is bigger than just the one girl. I don’t want you mixed up in any of this if something goes wrong.”

She frowns, but she nods. “I guess that makes sense,” she says. “Sorry. I don’t want to be pushy or anything.”

“You’re not,” he says, going over to put his arms around her. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be weird. I’m not...I’m not used to people giving a shit about me, I guess, except Gabe. And he has to, he’s my brother.”

“Well, I do,” Emily remarks. “You’re definitely worth giving a shit about. So.”

 

* * *

 

Harmony’s night hasn’t exactly gone how she thought it would, but she’s really not complaining. So a cute guy she met in a bar asked her to make a sex tape with him - there are worse things to be doing.

“So lemme just make sure this thing is working,” she says, fiddling with the video camera, “and then we can get started on the fun part.”

Miles smirks. He’s not really able to too much else at the moment, since his hands are tied to the headboard. “Sounds good to me,” he says.

Harmony pushes a few more buttons, then grabs the remote that’s supposed to be connected to the camera and pushes play. Or at least, she thought it was the camera remote. It’s not, because it turns on the TV instead.

“Shit,” she says, looking for the power button.

“-accident at the Rossum Labs. Local authorities have quarantined the entire campus while they contain the outbreak, which they suspect may be airborne. Two casualties have been reported, as well as dozens of affected patients, whose names are have not yet been released.”

Harmony stares at the screen, transfixed. The remote falls from her hand.

“Babe?” Miles asks, frowning. “C’mon, turn it off and let’s get going.”

“I have to go,” Harmony says, getting off the bed. “I have to go there.”

“What?”

“I have to go there.” She points at the screen and then heads for the door, walking slowly like she’s in a dream. “Goodbye.”

“What? Hey, hey, this isn’t funny, get back here! What the _fuck?_ ”

 

* * *

 

“Alright,” says Fitz, holding up a syringe, “this might hurt a bit, India, but Dr. Simmons has a nice lolly for you afterwards, if you’ll just be brave for me, alright?” He looks distinctly uncomfortable.

“Alright,” India says calmly. She’s sitting in the chair, but she’s not having a treatment, which is sort of funny. It’s good to be brave, though, so she will. “What will hurt?”

“Your arm, a little,” Fitz says, trying for soothing. He grabs onto her arm, trying for gentle. “It might feel a little sharp for a second, just here.”

“Alright,” India repeats, and then he does whatever he’s doing, she doesn’t really look because Dr. Simmons is standing there smiling at her and that’s nicer to look at, and she winces. “Ow.”

“It’s all over, India,” Dr. Simmons promises, and her smile gets bigger as she steps closer to India and hands her a lollipop as promised, a purple one. “Thank you for helping us. We’re trying to figure out how to help other people be their best too.” She gives her a soothing pat on her arm.

“That’s important,” India agrees, thoughtfully sucking on the lollipop. “Friends help each other out.”

“They do,” Dr. Simmons agrees, and for just a second she doesn’t look quite as happy as usual, but she isn’t hurt. Sometimes, India knows, you look less happy when you’re just thinking or busy, so it must be that. “You can relax for a bit, we’re just going to be right through the door.”

“Alright,” India says yet again, and she waves. “I’ll be right here.”

After she and Fitz are both inside the office and out of earshot, Fitz sighs in relief. “I don’t know how you’re so good with them,” he says with a laugh. “It’s like talking to children. And not particularly bright ones at that.”

“Oh, they’re sweet,” Jemma says, rolling her eyes and shifting out of her more official doctor posture. “I don’t mind them. They’re certainly not stressful to talk to like some more normal people can be.”

“I suppose,” Fitz says doubtfully. “Still. How long do you think before it starts to take effect?”

“Not a clue,” Jemma sighs. “If there was more data on what happened in the laboratories, I could presume, but as is… I suppose we just watch her and wait.”

Fitz sighs. “How dull.”

“A great deal of science is just waiting,” Jemma points out. “We can live. At least the House is quiet, with everyone else off on the mission?”

Shrugging, Fitz replies, “I suppose.”

Then, not two minutes later, Phil enters the room. “How’s the experiment going?” he asks cheerily. “Anything yet?”

That makes Fitz sigh even louder, and glare a bit at Jemma. Apparently it’s not _that_ quiet. “We’ve just started,” he says. “She was injected at one twenty five PM, and we’re waiting to see what effect it has.”

Jemma rolls her eyes, she can’t help it, there’s no need to be snappy. “Once we have some sense of the symptoms, we can start to figure out how to counteract them,” she says, although of course Phil knows that’s what they’re doing. She mostly just wants to take the edge off. “Have you heard anything from the campus?”

Phil shakes hism head. “It’s too early. They’ve barely set up shop there.” He sits down in the unoccupied chair. “Mind if I observe? There’s really not much else for me to do at the moment, with pretty much everyone on engagements and my paperwork all caught up.”

Fitz shoots Jemma an alarmed look. The _last_ thing he wants is Phil in here, mucking things up.

“There’s not much to observe at the moment, sir,” Jemma says hesitantly. She really doesn’t like telling her superiors ‘no,’ but she also doesn’t like Fitz upset.

“Still, we can chat,” Phil says, sprawling out awkwardly in the chair. “I feel like we don’t give you guys enough credit. I mean, you’re going to be working on a cure for an _unknown_ viral disease, how cool is that, right? You two seriously deserve the highest praise.” He offers his hand up for a high five.

Fitz raises an eyebrow and glances at Jemma, as if to say _you handle this._

Jemma clears her throat and obligingly raises her hand. “Antiserum would be more appropriate, sir,” she says.

“Oh, excuse me,” Phil says, slapping her hand enthusiastically. “Science was never my forte. I leave that up to you geniuses.” He grins.

Jemma smiles, a bit sheepishly, but she can’t help but explain, “An antiserum would treat the particular effects of something, as opposed to a vaccine, which would prevent all further instances. Considering we’re also planning on containing this drug and its effects, we’re less concerned with curing it altogether than treating those currently afflicted.”

Fitz is trying not to make a face. “I’m not sure Mr. Coulson is really interested in the semantics,” he points out.

Shrugging, Phil says, “I don’t mind hearing about it.”

“Well, this way he won’t make a fool of himself in front of future scientists,” Jemma says brightly. This isn’t meant as a dig at Phil, although it might come off that way; she’s trying to justify her own rambling.

“I suppose that’s true,” sighs Fitz.

 

* * *

 

Harmony’s been walking for awhile. Her feet sort of hurt, in large part because of her four-inch heels, but she can’t stop. She doesn’t know why. She just knows she needs to go to the place she saw on the news.

Finally, she sees a building that looks like the one she saw, and the same sign: ROSSUM LABS. There are a lot of police cars out front, so she heads around toward the back of the building to avoid them.

She’s almost reached the door to the labs when someone grabs her arm, “Daisy? Daisy Johnson, is that you?”

She turns to see a middle-aged black woman wearing a pantsuit and smiling at her. The woman has hold of her arm, not a hard grip, but just so she won’t walk away. “Sorry?” Harmony asks, blinking.

“Professor Caldwell! Don’t you remember me?” The woman chuckles. “You took my American literature class your sophomore year. I remember you, because you got us into some of the liveliest discussions that class has had in the fifteen years I’ve been teaching it.”

“Uh,” Harmony says. “I think you have the wrong person? My name is Harmony.” She pauses. “I mean, I think my name is Harmony.”

The woman frowns. “Are you sure? I heard you dropped out after that semester. Such a shame, you were bright even if you were a big pain some days - no offense.”

Harmony’s about to insist that no, she really has no idea what this woman’s talking about, when a tall blond woman strides up. “You should really come with me, miss,” the woman says, barely bothering to sound at all pleasant or patient. “There’s been an outbreak on campus, and we have reason to believe you’re affected.”

Harmony leans back and pulls her arm out of the professor’s grasp. “What? What’s...I don’t know what’s going on, I just came here to…” She trails off. What _is_ she here to do?

Then an even taller black man appears, offering his hand. “Please come with us,” he says, his voice gentle. “We can help you. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Harmony says, though she doesn’t know why.

She grabs the man’s hand and lets him lead her away. As she leaves, she hears the professor say, “Abstraction is one floor ahead of you. Would you rather be a bird or a fish?”

 

* * *

 

_“Hand me the red, will you?”_

_Ben rolls the can of spray paint towards her. “Pizza’s getting cold,” he points out._

_“Gimme a sec,” Daisy says, grabbing the can and shaking it. “I wanna just finish this one first.”_

_Ben snorts. “Y’know, you’re not gonna be helping anyone if you starve. Unless you’re doing a hunger strike, and I don’t think that would do much.”_

_Daisy sticks out her tongue at him. He makes a face back at her and starts in on a slice of pizza, scrolling through something on his phone. After a minute of silence, he says, “Oh, woah, listen to this.”_

_Daisy looks up, quirking her head. “What?”_

_“Some anonymous blog is blowing up on Twitter, calling out Rossum for animal abuse. Basically the stuff you’ve been trying to get people to listen to for a year. ‘Rossum has tortured dozens of animals in live experiments that violate multiple ethical codes.’” Ben reads silently for another minute, then hands Daisy his phone. “Read this, it’s fucking horrible.”_

_Daisy does, her eyes getting wider every second. “Jesus Christ,” she says, “someone’s gotta do something!”_

_“Like what? I mean, picketing is one thing, but if it’s just the two of us…” Ben shrugs helplessly. “We’re only sophomores. Nobody listens to us.”_

_“Maybe we can break in and film it!” Daisy says, looking excited. “That’d be proof! Then someone would have to listen to us!”_

_“Break in?” Ben frowns. “That place is like, insanely secure.”_

_“Yeah, but between you and me we can hack into it.” Daisy’s eyes are bright. “And then we can teach those bastards a lesson!”_

 

* * *

It’s been maybe half an hour since anything interesting has happened. Everyone has completely run out of topics to discuss.

Phil will sometimes clear his throat and attempt to talk about something new - a recent movie, or a book he’s read - but eventually the conversation will peter out again and the awkward silence will return. In the other room, India has dozed off, and she doesn’t even appear to be dreaming.

Fitz interrupts the silence with a loud wail. “I’m so _bored!_ ” he whines. “This is the dullest thing I’ve _ever_ had to do! I hate it!” He throws the nearest object, a rubber bouncy ball on his desk, against the wall.

“Don’t be a prat,” Jemma scolds, flopping back against the couch in exasperation (and in a much more casual way than usually she’d let herself do in front of Phil). “You have toys to play with, it could be worse.”

“Don’t wanna play,” sulks Fitz, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

Phil’s gotten up and gone to look in Fitz’s secret snack drawers. “Do you ever eat anything besides chips?” he asks. “There are a lot of chips in here.”

Fitz yelps, “Leave my drawer of inappropriate starches alone!” and runs over to slam the drawer shut.

Phil looks hurt. “Sorry. I just wanted a snack.” He honestly looks as if he might cry.

“What did you expect?” Fitz asks irritably. “Some...some _lentils_ or something?”

“I find lentils _completely_ incomprehensible,” Jemma announces.

“I don’t know what that means,” Phil says, eyes wide. “Does it mean delicious?”

“There are delicious juice boxes in the refrigerator!” Jemma yelps, pointing frantically. She seems pretty much glued to her seat, though. “Get a juice box. Juice is very, very good. We should all juice.”

“Juice is good,” Phil says agreeably, ambling over to the fridge and grabbing three juice boxes. “What’s grape juice made of?”

“It’s made of purple!” Fitz replies. “See, it says so right on the box.”

Jemma giggles. “Purple isn’t an ingredient, silly,” she says. She pauses, tilts her head. “ _Purple_.” Of course, it comes out sounding like “ _puhhh-ple_ ” because of her accent, and suddenly this seems like the funniest thing she’s ever heard in her life.

“What’s so funny?” Phil asks, poking the straw into his juice box and taking a loud sip.

“You have to admit, I’m _very_ British,” Jemma declares. “I don’t say hard Rs.” Her eyes go wide and she points to her mouth to emphasize the fact that, yes, the word “hard” even includes one of the unpronounced letters.

That makes Fitz burst into giggles too. He starts to roll his R’s until he gets out of breath, and then he tips over out of his chair onto the floor. Luckily, he falls out of it in slow motion and then just lays sprawled out on the floor, still giggling.

“Yes!” Jemma exclaims, rolling her own self onto the floor delicately and poking Fitz. “ _That’s_ a good idea!”

Fitz squirms, then sort of flops over so his head is pillowed on her stomach. “Y’know what’s a good idea?” he asks lazily. “You.”

“I’m an idea?” Jemma asks. “I thought I was a person.”

“‘S true either way,” Fitz hums. “Ideas, people, all the same really.”

“No it isn’t!” Phil chimes in. “I can have ideas in my head, but there’s only one people in my head. It’s me!”

“Unless you went to a psychiatrist,” Jemma says. “Then someone else would be in your head. Or if you had brain surgery.”

“Or if you know someone very well,” says Fitz. “Like you and I know each other, Jemma. We finish each other’s-”

“Juice!” Jemma exclaims, reaching for her juice box and taking a sip.

Fitz pauses for a second, like that confused him, and then he continues, “-and sentences. And it’s like we’re in each other’s brains sometimes, y’know? Like we’re meant to be...together, or soulmates, or…” He trails off, staring at his own fingertips.

Jemma wrinkles her nose. “Soulmates aren’t real,” she says doubtfully.

“Well, I know that, but…” Fitz pouts. “Don’t you think two people can be drawn together for a reason? Like two elements that cause a particular reaction when you combine them.”

“Hydrogen and oxygen combine into water or carbon dioxide, but not all hydrogen combines with all oxygen, nor are hydrogen and oxygen just _drawn_ together,” Jemma declares. “The reaction is significant, but the elements’ purposes aren’t determined by the potential bond.”

Fitz sighs. “But you know what I _mean_ , Jemma.” He’s starting to get whiny again.

“Look at my toes!” Phil interrupts. He holds up one of his bare feet, wiggling the toes in question. “They’re funny.” He giggles uncontrollably.

“Why do you have so many _secrets_?”

Fitz, Jemma, and Phil look up to see India standing in the doorway, tears streaming down her face, and then they all look at each other in confusion.

“I hate it!” India continues, still sobbing. “Everyone has so many secrets. I wish, I wish…” She sniffles, then juts her chin out defiantly. “I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school. I wish I could, could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy!”

Jemma blinks. “Did she just quote _Mean Girls_?” she whispers.

Phil is crying now too. “That sounds so beautiful,” he sniffles. “I want to eat a cake made of rainbows and smiles.”

Fitz is about to say something, and then his desk phone rings. Since he’s the closest to it, sort of, he stumbles to his feet and picks it up. “Big Mike’s Tackle House,” he says.

“Hello?” Mack says on the other end of the line. “Fitz?”

“Mack!” Fitz is so excited he almost drops the phone on the desk. “Guys, it’s Mack!”

“Hi, Mack!” Jemma calls gleefully. “How are things at the infection… house?”

“Charlie’s here!” Mack says.

“That’s funny,” Jemma laughs, seeming more delighted than baffled. “Tell her hi from me!”

“Wait,” Fitz says, like he’s waking up from a deep sleep, “isn’t she supposed to be off doing…” He glances at India. “Something else?”

“That’s not important right now,” Mack replies. “Just listen.”

Then, after a moment, they hear a piano playing. It’s so beautiful Fitz and Jemma start crying on top of Phil and India, who were already crying.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t like this,” Dr. Waterman says. She’s been gathering samples of potentially affected material from the area surrounding the broken window… for at least ten minutes. Most of the gathering has just been her sweeping broken glass back and forth and frowning at it.

“What’s wrong?” Melinda frowns.

“It’s not right,” Dr. Waterman mutters. She barely seems to have heard the question, and she certainly doesn’t look Melinda’s way.

“Let me handle this,” Agent McGill says, brushing past Melinda. “I took a course in handling traumatized witnesses during my CIA training.”

Melinda sighs, rolling her eyes. “Fine, fine.” Of _course_ Fitz had to go the extra mile and make these “agents” outrank her ridiculously.

“Dr. Waterman,” McGill says, kneeling down beside the other woman. “If you need to take a break from this crime scene, nobody will judge you for it. Someone else can gather samples.”

Waterman makes a face. “It’s my _job_ ,” she mutters.

“Hey,” McGill says. “I know. It’s okay. You’re okay.” Gently, she lays a hand on Waterman’s wrist, which is meant to be comforting…

Except instead, it makes Dr. Waterman shriek and jump up. “Get your hands off of me!” she yells. “Don’t _touch_ me, I’m not yours to _touch_ , I - I’m not, I’m not!” Before anyone can say anything, she launches herself at a couch along the far wall and curls up in the fetal position.

McGill blinks. “Whoa,” she says.

Melinda narrows her eyes. “What’s going on?” she asks, trying for gentle. Gentle is really not her strong suit.

McGill doesn’t answer, though. Her eyes find the gun on Melinda’s hip and she stiffens. “Do you have a permit for that?” she asks.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I?” Melinda glances down at her gun. “I think maybe we all need a break, let’s take five.” She reaches out to put her hand on McGill’s arm, as if to guide her away from the scene.

“Whoa!” McGill repeats, and she backs away, looking both solemn and nervous at once. “Let’s just take it easy here.”

“Who’s not taking it easy?” Melinda asks, raising an eyebrow. “I think...your _face_ should take it easy!” She snickers.

“My face is my face,” McGill says. “That response is asinine.”

“I’ll show you asinine,” Melinda says, pulling out the gun and pointing it at McGill’s face. Then, almost before McGill can react, she drops it again, grinning. “Y’know, this is really heavy,” she remarks. “Makes my arms tired.”

“Then maybe you should set it down,” McGill says carefully. “Wouldn’t that be good?”

“Yeah,” Melinda says, kneeling down to put the gun on the ground. Then she slowly flops over onto the ground herself. “Ooh,” she says. “It’s so cool and smooth down here. Like a dolphin!”

“You’re not going to win me over with _exotic animals_ , you ass!” Waterman shouts from her couch.

Melinda starts rubbing her body on the ground, humming happily. McGill plops in one of the spinning chairs at a desk and starts going in circles. Waterman just curls up tighter and tries to make it all go away.

 

* * *

 

_“Security cameras are good to go,” Daisy says. “They’re set to play on a loop for at least two hours. Plenty of time for us to get in and out.”_

_Ben nods. “Nice work. You ready?”_

_“Yep.” Daisy pulls the scarf she’s using as a makeshift disguise up so it covers the bottom half of her face. “Let’s do this.”_

_Navigating Rossum turns out to be more complicated than they thought, but the map Ben recovered from a hapless freshman’s email account sort of helps. Finally they end up at a secret room that’s protected by a keypad._

_“Oh no,” Daisy snarks, “whatever shall we do.” She shines her phone’s light on the keypad, easily identifying the most-touched keys, and then generates possible combinations and types them in until one of them works. This takes the better part of fifteen minutes, and she shrugs. “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”_

_Ben laughs. “It’s okay, it worked.”_

_Once they’re inside the room, Daisy flicks the lightswitch and squints as her eyes adjust. There are at least a dozen glass tanks around the edge of the room, all occupied by two or three mice. A few of the mice are moving, but most of them just stay stationary, like they’re fake. “Woah,” Ben says, eyes wide. “Creepy.”_

_“Yeah,” Daisy says, taking a quick walk around the room with her phone camera. “They’re barely reacting to us at all.”_

_“This one’s eyes are all fucked up.” Ben crouches down to get a closeup of one mouse whose eyes are swollen shut. “Jesus.”_

_Daisy shudders. “Let’s keep going. God, this is all just…” She trails off._

_The next room has cages full of monkeys, most of which are in various unhealthy states. Some of them have patchy fur and dull eyes, others have the same unsettling stillness as the mice. A few screech when the light turns on and cower in the corners of their cages._

_“How the hell are they keeping this quiet?” Ben asks, filming as much as he can. “And what are they_ doing _in here anyway?”_

_“We’ll make them tell us,” Daisy says, sounding furious. She steps closer to one cage to focus on one monkey, who growls at her. “Hey, little guy, don’t worry, we’ll be leaving soon.”_

_She spends several minutes getting a ton of footage, so much so that she almost misses Ben calling out to her from the next room. “Daisy,” he says, and his voice sounds weird. “Come here.”_

_“What?” she asks, brow furrowed. “Don’t tell me they have dogs in there or something.”_

_“Just come here.”_

_The next room doesn’t have any animals on it. But it does have monitors._

_“Oh Jesus.” She puts her hand up to her mouth. “Do they have_ people _locked up in here?”_

_“Maybe not here, but somewhere.” They’re looking at a feed of what could generously be described as a cross between fish tanks and drawers in a morgue: at least a half dozen upright compartments, glass-walled, each containing a human being in little more than underwear. The people seem to be alive, occasionally one of them breathes out an air bubble, but they’re heavily sedated and pretty clearly in a situation they’d have never consented to._

_Daisy stares at the monitors. “What the_ fuck. _”_

_But before she can do much more, they hear voices and footsteps coming towards them. “Shit,” Ben says, “we better get out of here.”_

 

* * *

“I’m telling you, man! I’m fine! I don’t need to be holed up in this psych ward!”

“Sir, please sit down,” says Agent Leary. “We’re under strict orders not to let anyone leave the building until the all-clear is given.”

“This is ridiculous! I swear I’m fine.”

Harmony watches the strange boy argue with the agent for a little while longer. Then the agent seems to give up and backs away from him, going to talk to another person. She goes over to the boy. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says, sounding sullen. “I bet you’re fine too, aren’t you? This is such crap.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m...I was somewhere else and now I’m here. I’m Harmony.” She offers her hand somewhat hesitantly.

“Hey, Harmony,” he replies, waving instead of shaking her hand (he’s clearly just that kind of guy). “I’m Deke. You go here? I haven’t seen you around, but I don’t really know anyone outside science and engineering.”

“No,” she says, blinking. “I don’t...I’ve never been here before. What’s going on?”

“A top-secret drug got out and it’s infecting people on campus,” Deke explains, and then he lowers his voice. “I was in the lab when it happened, but like hell I’m telling anyone that.”

Harmony’s eyes go wide. “Are you okay?”

“Now I am,” he replies. “Whatever was going on, it must have worn off already. But I need to get back there. We were onto something, I need to get it before these assholes in suits do.”

“I came here for a reason,” Harmony says. “Maybe I should help you get whatever you need to get.”

“I mean, it’s not gonna be easy,” Deke hums. “They’ve got this place locked down tight.”

Harmony squares her shoulders. “I’m tough,” she says. “I can help.”

“We should start a distraction,” he suggests. “I saw you talking to that big guy who was playing the piano…”

She nods. “I know him from somewhere. I think. I can go talk to him to distract him.”

“Get him to talk to the babysitters,” he says. “They’re the ones we need to distract so we can get out.”

“Okay.” Harmony says, walking over to the guy seated at the piano. He seems pretty preoccupied playing said piano, but she coughs. “Um, hello there?”

The man turns to her, smiling. “Charlie!” he says warmly. “Thanks for coming to my concert.”

Harmony blinks. “Uh, I don’t think we’re at a concert,” she says, not interested in arguing the name thing. Maybe the drugs just make people forget everyone’s names. “So...I was wondering what the deal is with those guys,” she adds, waving her hand at the two agents. “What are they doing?”

“Protecting us,” the man says, still smiling placidly. He hasn’t stopped playing the piano. “That’s their job.”

Harmony wracks her brain for an excuse, any excuse, and finally arrives at “I have to pee! Really bad! Can you, y’know, distract them for five minutes so I can go pee?”

The man frowns. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Charlie.”

“Please?” She fidgets like she really does have to pee. “I won’t be gone long, I promise.”

He considers for a moment before nodding. “Only for you. Let me just finish this piece.”

Finally, he’s off chatting with the agents, and Harmony sprints over to where Deke is waiting. “Let’s go!” she says, practically shoving him out of the room.

 

* * *

 

_“Scoot over.” Ben’s voice is hot in Daisy’s ear. They’re currently smushed together in some kind of tiny storage closet, waiting for the footsteps to recede enough that it might be safe to book it out of here._

_Daisy squirms, trying her best to accommodate him. Her efforts are mostly in vain. “Can’t,” she hisses. “Your elbow’s digging into my boob, by the way.”_

_“Sorry.” Ben tries to adjust as well. “Shouldn’t be too much longer. They all ran through the hall like three minutes ago.”_

_After what feels like an eternity to Daisy’s scrunched limbs, they tumble out of the closet and look around wildly. “Coast is clear!” Daisy whispers, and they book it back the way they came._

_Unfortunately, they were wrong._

_“Hey!” comes a shout from behind them. “You two, stop!”_

_“Run!” yells Ben, grabbing her hand. They bolt down the hallway, back through the room with all the monitors, back through the monkey room. Daisy vaguely hears shouting behind her, but she’s concentrating on running too much to pay attention to what’s being said._

_They manage to get back through the door and they’re almost free - then they hear the pop! pop! of gunfire. “Shit!” Ben yelps. “Daisy, get down!”_

_The next thing Daisy knows, Ben’s weight is on top of her and she’s faceplanting into the grass._

_There’s a burst of noise, and she finally wriggles out enough to groan, “Jesus, dude, a little warning next time!”_

_She expects Ben to make a joke back at her, or maybe snap that he just saved her life so she should quit bitching. She expects Ben to answer her. He doesn’t._

_“Ben?” Daisy can’t quite turn herself over to see him. He’s so heavy...like dead weight on top of her…_

_“Freeze!” barks one of their pursuers, stomping up to point a gun at her head. “Stay on the ground!”_

_“Ben! Ben!” Daisy can hear herself getting hysterical. That’s not like her at all. Why isn’t Ben making fun of her for it? Why won’t he answer her?_

_Why is the back of her shirt wet?_

 

* * *

 

“Come on, the lab is this way,” Deke says, tugging Harmony along.

Harmony lets herself be dragged behind him. This feels familiar for some reason she can’t figure out. She’s never been here before, has she? “Do you ever get deja vu?” she asks idly.

“I dunno, I guess so,” he replies, shrugging. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Maybe. I just have the weirdest feeling that I’ve been here before…” Harmony trails off.

“You sure you don’t go here? Maybe you’re dating someone that does?” He makes a face, like the idea of her dating anyone is abhorrent. “I don’t think the drug would make you lose your memory, but maybe you’re a special case.”

Harmony thinks for a long moment. “No. I mean...I was seeing someone, earlier today, but he didn’t go here. I met him at a bar. I’ve never been here in my life.” She sounds less sure than she means to. “What are we going to get, anyway?”

“Some stuff I left up there,” he says evasively. “It’ll help, I promise.”

“Okay,” she says, frowning. “Like an antidote or something? How do you know if you’re infected?”

“You just know,” he replies. “It releases your inhibitions. You act ridiculous. You do things you would never do normally.”

“Oh.” Harmony blinks. “Then I don’t think I’m infected. How do you get infected anyway?”

“Touch,” Deke says. “If you accidentally touch the drug, or you touch someone who’s touched it, you’re infected. Contagious until it wears off, which seems to take about eight hours naturally.”

Harmony nods. “Well, someone earlier touched me, and she was acting weird, but I don’t feel anything.” She shrugs and adds, “Are we getting close?”

“Yeah,” he says, but then he spots a couple of agents in suits at the end of a hallway and yelps, “Shit, we’ve gotta take the other way around. There’s an elevator around the corner.”

Harmony spins on her heel and powerwalks toward said elevator. “So,” she says, once they’re out of earshot of the guards, “how exactly did you get into the ‘accidentally growing a dangerous virus’ business?”

“I’m a student,” Deke says casually as they get in and start heading to the next floor. “And it’s not a virus. It’s a drug, and it has its applications like any other.”

“Like what?”

“Well, in smaller doses it could be used therapeutically,” he says, though he doesn’t offer any elaboration. They get out of the elevator and he says, “Lab’s at the end of the hall. Come on.”

Harmony trots alongside him, though she’s starting to wonder what, exactly, “therapeutically” means in this case. “So what’s the plan?”

“You distract the guards,” he says. “There are going to be guards. I go in, get the stuff, then we get outside and take it from there.”

“Distract them how?”

“I dunno, just do it,” Deke mutters. “Girl ways?”

Harmony glances at him quizzically. “Have you ever talked to a girl before?”

“Yes,” he retorts defensively. “I have girl friends. My girl friend Paula just died.” He’s clearly hoping that mentioning this will make her feel bad.

“Well, I’m sorry about that,” she says. “It was just a weird thing to say. Like, just ‘cause I’m a girl I’ll have different ways of distracting someone? Unless you meant flirting with them, which is a super weird way to say that.”

He shrugs. “Womanly wiles. Girls can do that, like, girly girls anyway. You’re girly.”

Harmony snorts. “Whatever. So does that means I go in first?”

“Approach first, and I’ll slip by,” Deke suggests.

“Okay.” Squaring her shoulders, Harmony struts off toward the guard in front of the lab. “Hey there,” she says, giving him her best winning smile. “How’s your day going?”

“Doing okay, all considered,” says - his name badge says Agent Swindlehurst. “It’s a real shame what’s going on here. _Speaking of_ , you shouldn’t be here. Did you get lost or something?” He chuckles to himself. “Fall asleep over your studies and wake up to an abandoned building?”

Harmony doesn’t hesitate before nodding. “Yeah, um, I pulled an all-nighter for a paper I was working on. Woke up a little while ago and I have no idea what’s going on. Do you know what’s going on?” She pastes on an innocent expression.

“There was an outbreak in this very lab,” says Swindlehurst. “Crazy bug is going across campus making everyone act, well, crazy.”

As they’re speaking, Deke sneaks into the lab and can be heard rummaging around for something, but it’s not long before he’s running back out and shouting, “Harmony, run!” Apparently he didn’t realize that there would in fact be other people in the lab, two of them agents, one of whom is on his tail.

She bolts after him, not looking back at Swindlehurst, who yells “Wait! Stop!”

They race through the building, and eventually they find an alcove to hide in and catch their breath. “So what did you grab?” pants Harmony.

“What I needed,” Deke replies evasively.

Harmony glares at him. “You can’t make me go through all this and then not tell me. That’s shitty.”

He pauses, clearly thinking about something, before he hands her a vial. “It’s the drug,” he says in a showy whisper.

“ _What?”_ Harmony forgets to be quiet. “What the _hell_ do you want that for? You said it killed your friends!”

“If we have the drug we can make an antidote,” he says, but it’s clearly not the full truth.

“I don’t believe you,” Harmony says, and takes off before he can react.

“Wait a second!” he shouts, following after her, but once he notices the agents on his tail he starts pointing frantically and shouting, “Hey! She’s got the drug!”

Harmony doesn’t look back, bursting out the front door of the lab a minute later and running across the lawn, not really paying attention to where she’s going, just running really. She doesn’t know why she feels so strongly about it, but she knows Deke can’t get this vial back.

Melinda’s hot on Deke’s heels when she hears him say “She’s got the drug!” “I’ve got her! You get him!” she barks at Davis, who nods and goes after the boy. Melinda lengthens her stride and easily catches up to the girl, whose agility in four-inch heels is impressive, but no match for her. “Hey!” she says, grabbing the girl by the shoulder and wrenching her off her feet. “Stop!”

The girl yelps and tries to wriggle out of her grasp, but Melinda grabs her other arm and manages to get the handcuffs on her. Then she gets a good look at the girl’s face and blinks. It’s… “Charlie?” she asks, before coughing and saying, “Stop struggling, we need to take you in for questioning.”

Harmony stills, but keeps glaring at Melinda. “Why do you people keep calling me other names? God! My name is Harmony!”

Deke, meanwhile, is still trying to run, even as he shouts, “Why are you still chasing me? She’s the one with the drug! She’s probably going to do something awful with it, like sell it or something.” It’s at this point that he realizes he’s said too much, but he still keeps on running.

Davis tackles him to the ground a second later and a struggle ensues.

Meanwhile, Melinda keeps talking to Charlie sternly. She’s trying to cover up for her slip earlier. “Mistook you for another suspect in this case. My apologies. Now, how do you know that man over there?”

“I just met him today!” Harmony whines. “He said he needed my help, so I was helping him, and the next thing I knew we were breaking into top-secret labs and then he took the drug from the lab and I just had a feeling that he shouldn’t have it, so I took it, and now my wrists hurt because of these stupid handcuffs!”

“Look,” sighs Melinda, “we just need to take you inside and ask you a few questions and then-”

They’re interrupted by the distinctive sound of a gunshot.

“Shit!” Melinda whirls around. “Davis!”

There are two bodies lying on the ground, and Melinda fears the worst for a second. “ _Davis!_ ”

“I’m okay.” His voice sounds dull. “I think. But the gun went off and…”

Melinda gently lifts him off of Deke’s body and looks him over. He’s covered in blood and in shock, but seems unharmed. Meanwhile, there’s a pretty obvious gunshot wound in Deke’s chest that’s probably to blame for the blood. “What happened?” she asks.

“He reached for my gun and I was trying to make sure the safety stayed on,” Davis says, nearly monotone. “It didn’t and the gun went off. I’m okay, but he’s…”

“Oh my god!” yelps Harmony, running up to see what’s happened. She should be trying to get away, but she can’t look away.

Then she feels a warm hand on her shoulder and someone says, “Do you trust me?”

She whirls around. The guy from earlier, the one she ran into after the weird encounter with the professor, is there. “With my life,” she says. She feels safer already.

“C’mon,” he says, steering her away from the bloody scene. “It’s time for a treatment.”

 

* * *

 

Phil’s called an all-hands meeting in his office. It’s a bit crowded, but they’re making it work. No one seems to want to look each other in the eye.

Finally Phil coughs. “So,” he says. “That went…”

“Very badly,” Melinda finishes, rolling her eyes.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it like that.”

“I can’t believe we didn’t sort out that it was spread by touch,” Fitz grumbles. “Or that it’d set the Dolls off like it did.”

“I looked them all over for residual signs of trauma, and they’re fine, and we did manage to figure out a counteragent, at least,” Jemma says. “We” means her and Fitz, obviously, but unlike usual they’re sitting about as far away from each other as possible.

Phil nods. “Yes, and thank you both for that. My deepest apologies to, ah, anyone who found themselves affected by the…” He trails off.

“Crazy juice?” Mack suggests with a wry smile.

“That’s one way to put it,” Coulson replies. “Thanks for your hard work, everyone. Next time we’ll be extra careful so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

 

* * *

 

_Daisy’s been in this room for over an hour. She’s yelled herself hoarse, banged her wrists around enough that they’re bruised where the cuffs cut into them, and cried so hard that her eyes sting. Finally, a bald man wearing a nice suit enters the room._

_“Hello, Daisy,” he says. “My name is Phil Coulson.”_

_“Cool,” she snaps. “Can I go home now? I just...I wanna be alone.”_

_“No you don’t,” he says. “You’ve been alone in here for over an hour. You want to forget that the last twenty four hours happened.”_

_Daisy narrows her eyes at him (which hurts enough that tears she didn’t realize she still had prick at the corners of them). “Fuck off,” she says. “You have no idea what I want.”_

_“You’re right,” he says simply. “But I can guess. You want the world to be better than it is. You want people to stop mistreating animals, and each other. You want people to listen to you when you speak, and you want to make a difference. Is that right?”_

_“Maybe.” Daisy tries for indifference._

_“What if I told you you could make sure all that happens?”_

_“I’d say you’re playing good cop, and ask where the bad cop is.”_

_He laughs. “You’re smart. I like that. But it’s true, Daisy. I can offer you enough money to ensure that you could do whatever you wanted to help the causes you champion. You could even start your own non-profit, if you wanted. Anything you want to do, you can.”_

_“Yeah, right,” scoffs Daisy. “You’re making this up. Where’s the cop to take me to jail already?”_

_“Well, I have a little proposal for you first,” Phil says._


End file.
